Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong for Australia on their current India tour. After big defeats in the first two Tests, the visitors have lost four players of their squad to disciplinary bans ahead of the third.
As Michael Clarke prepares to lead his team to redemption in Mohali, he finds himself with very few options to pick his playing XI from.
“As a captain and a selector you always want to be able to select your team from your full squad,” Clarke said on the eve of the third Test. “But with the current circumstances, we have 13 players to choose from – if Matthew Wade recovers in time for the third Test – including Brad Haddin, who joined the team a couple of days back.
“Matthew Wade will train today and we’ll give him every chance of proving his fitness ahead of the Test. We’ll see how he feels tomorrow and we’ll announce our XI at the toss,” the Australian captain said.
The team management decided to ban Shane Watson, James Pattinson, Mitchell Johnson and Usman Khawaja for the upcoming match after they failed to comply with the coach’s order of preparing a three-point presentation on how Australia can improve their performance in the series.
Watson left India on the same day as his wife is expecting their first child. Clarke said that he is hopeful the vice-captain will return for the fourth Test.
“Shane has flown home for the birth of his first child, which is very exciting for him and his wife. I spoke to Shane as he landed in Sydney. Fingers crossed that everything goes well, the baby is born during this Test and Shane flies back to join us for the fourth Test,” he said.
The issue has hogged tremendous limelight in the media over the last two days and now Clarke insists on moving on to the important game of cricket coming up.
“A big part of our team preparation over the last 48 hours has been to put the decision behind us and concentrate our energy on winning the Mohali Test,” Clarke said.
Speaking of Mohali, Clarke said that they’re expecting conditions much similar to what they encountered in Chennai and Hyderabad. Although the Mohali track is known to be the most pace-friendly in India, this time it wears a totally different look. The grass is shaved off – there’s only a sprinkling of dry, yellow grass to hold together a pitch that is filled with wide cracks.
The very unlike-Mohali wicket didn’t surprise the Aussie captain. “The wicket was quite dry yesterday and it will only dry up further. I think the conditions will be very similar to what we faced in the first two Test matches.
“I have played a bit of cricket in Mohali and I know they generally leave a bit of grass on for the fast bowlers, but I’m not surprised that all the grass has been cut off this time. The positive to that is at least we have experienced these conditions in the first two Tests. We know what we’re in for and we’ve seen the Indian bowlers. We’re much better prepared now than what we were before the first match,” Clarke said.
The Australian team was gutted after their innings loss in Hyderabad inside three and a half days. They stayed back and practised batting on the fourth and fifth day wicket, which Clarke believes would have helped his batsmen form their plans better against the Indian spinners.
“It helped a lot practising on the match wicket and gave the guys some good experience. However, it doesn’t guarantee success. I’m really confident that the boys are feeling good about what they’ve learnt from the first two Tests and now it’s time to show that.
“We’ve seen in the first two Test matches how difficult it can be. You need to play well for all five days to win a Test match in India. In this series, we’ve played some good cricket in only patches,” Clarke said.
