Australia V India Preview

Par for the course at the moment, India’s tour of Australia has been rejigged and relocated before a ball has been bowled. Its competitors, too, have been reacquainted – first with hotel quarantine and only recently with each other – as they undergo another disjointed preparation to ensure that international cricket can power ahead.

With a jam-packed schedule ahead of it, Cricket Australia will be hoping that after shuffling the magnets, they can get the season underway in Queensland without a hitch; giving the all-conquering Women’s team a chance to shine.

Originally slated to take place across Melbourne, Sydney and Perth, COVID complications have once again forced CA into a sunny North-Eastern corner as a young and exciting Australian squad ready themselves for the challenge of a dynamic – if often unpredictable – Indian side.

Last time Australia played India, the home side claimed the T20 World Cup (Courtesy ICC, © ICC Business Corporation FZ LLC 2020) 

Playing across all three formats, there will be myriad chance for Australia’s up-and-comers to make their mark on the international stage. Without their two highest ranked bowlers in Jess Jonassen (injury) and Megan Schutt (personal reasons), Australia will be looking to Stella Campbell, Maitlan Brown and Annabel Sutherland to further their credentials as bona fide internationals.

Additionally, Georgia Redmayne, who has dominated at domestic levels both at home and abroad for the last two seasons, has been included in the Australian squad for the first time. We spoke to the wicket-keeper batter in the lead up to the series, who is excited at the possibility of representing Australia.

“To be included was really nice acknowledgement,” she said. “If I do get the chance to play for Australia, then I’ll definitely make the most of it.”

Whichever way the selectors lean next Tuesday, there will be an added layer of pressure for the final XI in the first ODI; Australia currently holds a world record 24 wins in a row in the format. Undefeated since the 2017 Ashes in the fifty over format, Meg Lanning’s team have won all around the world and now hold the mantle as their nation’s most loved team. It will be more difficult this time around, as twelve of the squad have prepared almost entirely in hotel rooms, trading net sessions for stationary bikes and home workouts.

Streaks are hard to maintain for a reason, but Redmayne and the Australian team make no excuse of the challenges that they will have to overcome to maintain it.

“It’s a bit of a different preparation for everyone,” she said. “But that’s part of the challenge you have got to overcome with professional sport these days.”

Though the majority of the Australian squad has been quarantining, opening batter Beth Mooney has been enjoying a uniquely expanded training block. The Queenslander has been able to prepare better than most and is looking forward to whole series and particularly the unique challenge of a day/night Test match.

Beth Mooney can't wait to get underway. (Source: Getty Images)

“I’ve had a couple of opportunities to get out under lights and face the pink ball,” she said. “It’s something that is pretty foreign to us as a group and it’s important we try to get as much of that format into our game as well.”

The Test match at Metricon Stadium starting September 30 will be the Australian Women’s first since 2019, when Ellyse Perry was player of the match with 192 runs and one wicket. Perhaps understandably, then, Perry is thrilled to get back in the whites, suggesting more long form cricket for the women is a “no-brainer.”

Georgia Redmayne too is thrilled at the prospect of playing Test match cricket.

“To pull on the Baggy Green would be so incredibly special,” she said. “So few people get to do it and it would be great reward for all of the hard work that you put in.”

The series will conclude with three T20’s on the Gold Coast. Though the home side will have a level of confidence coming into the final leg of the tour (the last time the two sides played was the T20 World Cup Final at the MCG), it will linger in the back of their minds that India’s only success down under, was a T20 series victory in 2016. To that end, opening batter Smriti Mandhana lauds the development in the Indian side since the two sides faced off at the beginning of 2020.

 

“The team has grown massively,” she told Cricket Australia’s The Scoop Podcast. “COVID was a big break after the T20 World Cup… and the whole team has gone away and worked on their fitness and skills.”

 

Moreover, the Indian side come into the series with some recent match experience, having hosted South Africa, and toured England in a multi format series as recently as June. By contrast, Australia hasn’t played since April and have been separated thereafter due to persistent border closures.

 

However the series pans out, it heralds the arrival of a monumental Australian summer. Additionally, with the Women’s World Cup taking place in New Zealand across March and April next year, it is a perfect chance for both sides to settle into a rhythm and – more so than ever – appreciate the chance to be on the field playing at the highest level.