After the Sydney saga which went beyond cricket, we can finally look forward to Perth tomorrow- and hopefully the interest will be about cricket.
Everyone is talking about the pace and bounce of Perth. Most current Indian team members have not played a Test here (except Tendulkar), so it sure will be a test with Aussies expected to bowl with 4 seamers.
There are some interesting prospects though:
1. Just as Indians are not familiar with this sort of surface, Aussies aren't familiar facing 2 spinners (hopefully Harbhajan will play, as the rest of the pacers do not look threatening, especially since Zaheer Khan is out of the series).
2. Perhaps Harbhajan can be a stock bowler and Kumble can be seen as a third quick bowler- which as a legspinner he is. It will be interesting to see the length Kumble bowls and the pace. Likewise for Harbhajan, he may bowl fuller and vary his trajectory to exploit the bounce? So far in this series Kumble has made the bowlers bowl quite a disciplned length- not allowing too many horizontal bat shots.
3. Ganguly may be more than handy as well. Also, hopefully Tendulkar, Sehwag can bowl the slower stuff with an idea of altering the tempo of the game- as there is some mention about the wind. Apparently, Bedi has taken 10 wickets in a match here, although Warne has not gotten big hauls (which is perhaps on account of the efficiency of the Aussie pacers).
3. Indians did handle bounce well in the Test series last year in South Africa- as defensively the ball just flies over the stumps (in ODIs where run rate is key, such tracks are not fun for Indians, as seen in South Africa again last year).
So who will open the batting tomorrow for India? After 30 years this question lingers on...
Happy Sankrant (Kite Flying Festival)
Saumil
Mumbai, 15th Jan 2008
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