Having achieved a fair amount of success over the years, Australia opener Usman Khawaja has termed the Ravichandran Ashwin-led Indian spin attack as the “toughest challenge” he will face in the four-match series starting February 9 in Nagpur. Gave.
Pakistan-born batsman who reached India David will open the batting alongside Warner, following his teammates due to visa delays.
Khawaja has played limited overs cricket in India but will finally get a chance in the longest format after being part of the Test team in 2013 and 2017.
Recently named as Australia’s ‘Test Cricketer of the Year’, the southpaw is expected to play a big role in his team’s quest to win their first series in India since 2004-05.
“Definitely a different experience. There are no guarantees in this game, but at least there is a bit more maturity in batting and more maturity in bowling.
“We have learned a lot in the last 10 years, especially what kind of wickets we can get and how we think we can perform and go out and win Test matches. It feels like we’re in a better position than ever, but it’s always going to be tough,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald.
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Australia declined to play a warm-up match ahead of the Test series and instead opted to simulate spin-friendly conditions near Bengaluru upon their arrival last week.
They clearly see Ashwin as the biggest threat from the opposition, even as they get hold of a ‘duplicate’ of him in preparation for the high-profile clash.
Australia, a team full of left-handed batsmen, is working overtime to deal with the threat of Ashwin.
“Ashwin is a gun. He’s very skilful, he’s got lots of intriguing short variations, he uses the crease quite well too. If you had asked me the same question when I was younger, I would probably have answered a lot of things. Couldn’t because I haven’t really learned how to counter what the off-spinners are doing.” Khwaja said.
“But it’s actually one of those nice challenges. On the first day, the third day or the fourth day the wicket is going to turn at some point, and he’s going to be in the game and bowl a lot of overs.
“So it is all about figuring out how am I going to play against him, how am I going to score runs against him, what can he do. If you bat against him for a long time, he will change his game plan against you.
“He’s not the kind of guy who will do the same thing over and over again, he’ll try to take you out.”
The spectators are expecting turning pitches in all the four matches, which will make the trio of Ashwin, Akshar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja more lethal with the new ball.
He said, ‘If the wicket is good then it is probably the easiest time to bat with the new ball. But as soon as the wicket gets bad in India and you get spinners to bowl with the new ball, it’s probably the most difficult time to bat anywhere.
“When we train, the new ball is always the most difficult time on a spinning wicket. People believe that the best time to bat in the subcontinent is when it is flat, but not when it is spinning when there is so much variation with the new ball. Once it softens it becomes easy to predict what it is going to do,” Khawaja said.
He also described his difficulties in reaching India.
“It was what I wanted to go there to be honest. Sydney has a good direct flight from Sydney to Bangalore and I unfortunately missed it, which was useless.
“It was long, I had to go to Melbourne and then from Melbourne I was delayed three hours from Sydney to Melbourne, so it took me five or six hours to get there.
“Then I got delayed again by four hours from Melbourne to Delhi, so there was delay after delay. Still a little surrogate from flight. Oh well, I’m here now,” he said.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)