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Follow UsBlock the off-side for Smith, Labuschagne
Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith are not in the best of forms, averaging 33.6 and 39.4 in Tests since 2023. Curtailing them again would be vital to the outcome of this series.
India ticked this box quite efficiently in the 2020/21 season with a much inexperienced pace attack. Their task was bigger, given that both Smith (averaging 73.4 in the preceding three series) and Labuschagne (averaging 83.3 in the same set of matches) were in red-hot form.
India chalked out the plan to block the off-side for the Australian batters. While both Smith and Labuschagne still scored more than one-third of their runs against pace on the off-side, the margin was reduced at the start of the innings.
In the first 30 balls against pace, Smith’s off-side scoring percentage dropped from 38.3% in the previous three series to 32.7% against India. For Labuschagne, the number dropped from 41.8% to 34.9%.
India achieved this by bowling into the bodies of both batters. As can be seen in the pitch map comparison, India narrowed down on the good length and the back-of-a-length areas to prevent runs on the off-side while taking out short and full-length deliveries that would have made it easier to fetch runs on the on-side.
Both Smith and Labuschagne were the top two scorers in the series. But India ensured they had them tied down from scoring daddy hundreds.
The off-spin choke vs Smith, Labuschagne
The spinners played an equally important role or in fact more. Following the same plan of not allowing Smith and Labuschagne runs on the off-side, the Indian spinners, especially the off-break bowlers — Ravichandran Ashwin and Washington Sundar — bowled majorly on the stumps and or followed a leg stump line from around the wicket.
Smith faced 72.2% of his deliveries in these zones while Labuschagne had to tackle 66.7% of the total balls faced against off-spin in the same territory. They both struggled to score freely but moreover, Ashwin and Sundar challenged both edges of the bat. Smith was out caught by both the leg slip and the conventional first slip. Overall, Smith averaged only 21.5 against off-spinners in the series for four dismissals.
Given both Ashwin and Sundar are part of the squad this time also, India already have their Plan A in place against Australia’s ace batters.
Who is going to grind for India?
India had a certain Cheteshwar Pujara who grinded for the Men in Blue in Australia. In 2018/19, he batted nearly 180 balls per dismissal with no other batter who played all four Tests crossing even the 100-ball mark.
In 2021/22, Pujara’s balls-per-dismissal ratio dropped to 116 but was still the best among both sides. It was a much low-scoring series and despite a considerable drop in numbers, Pujara guarded India through thick and thin.
For instance, Pujara saw off the tricky first hour on Day 2 of the MCG Test in 2020 before getting out on the brink of the first drinks break. On the batting card, he scored only 17 off 70 balls but his stoic defence laid the foundation for Ajinkya Rahane’s hundred that gave India a 131-run lead.
In the subsequent SCG Test, the Indian openers — Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill — blunted the new ball batting for 27 and 22 overs respectively for the opening wicket. And both times, Pujara batted over four hours to build on the resilience.
Fast forward to 2024, Pujara is out of the team and India lack batters who can bat time. Rohit himself is coming off a quiet series and has shifted his priorities from defense to attacking strokes.
Over the last three years (since November 2022), Australia has the third lowest batting average as host country in Test (27.1). There will be periods when the visiting team needs to absorb pressure rather than shifting it back towards the Aussies — basically someone in the Pujara role.
Yashasvi Jaiswal has the highest balls-per-dismissal ratio for an Indian batter since 2022, however, with little experience in testing away conditions.
Virat Kohli is undergoing a lean patch but showed shades of adapting himself to conditions in the two Tests in South Africa in the 2023/24 season. This is also where Ravindra Jadeja can step in as an option to bat out time. It may sound a big gamble but Jadeja can be promoted from number seven to perform Pujara’s grinding duties higher up the order.
Pant needs to keep destroying
A number of former cricketers, including Monty Panesar, have underlined Rishabh Pant as a key batter for India in the series. The reason lies in one of Virat Kohli’s famous words dissecting Australian cricket: “The Aussies are not calm when put under pressure.”
The oddity of the Pujara-Pant partnerships is what created the difference between India fighting for a draw and pushing for a win. Pant cracked the monotony of Nathan Lyon and Josh Hazlewood, two of Australia’s most metronomic bowlers.
Hazlewood bowled at an economy of only 2.3 in the 2020/21 Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Except, Pant scored at 4.9 runs per over against him, the highest for any batter who faced at least 30 balls against the right-arm pacer.
In a similar vein, Pant scored 3.9 runs per over against Lyon, again, the highest for any batter against the off-spinner in the series with a minimum of 30 balls. Pant was also the fastest-scoring batter against Pat Cummins in that series.
Hazlewood and Lyon have been Australia’s most productive bowlers over the past 12 months, averaging 20.8 and 21.8, followed by Cummins at 25.02. Thus, another big show from Pant against these bowlers can disrupt the Aussies from their Plan A.
Better plans vs Travis Head
Travis Head has been a thorn in India’s flesh, taking the 50-over World Cup and the World Test Championship away from them. He was a different batter when India previously toured Australia for Test cricket, someone who was still struggling to find his mojo in the longest format. But since marking a return in the 2021/22 Ashes, Head has averaged 43 at a strike rate of 78.3 in Test cricket.
He is the Rishabh Pant equivalent in the Australian line-up who can be impossible to contain against the older Kookaburra ball. India would be well aware of the ‘Head’ache in store owing to the WTC final last year and should be prepared with better plans.
For starters, they can target Head with short-pitched deliveries early in the innings. Since his resurgence, Head averages only 24 on short balls, his lowest on any length facing pace. The number drops to 11 on short-pitched deliveries earlier in the innings – first 30 balls.
During his 163 in the WTC final, India bowled only six short balls to Head at the start of the innings with only three of them targeting his body.
Head is also susceptible to the moving ball at the top of the off stump. However, to exploit that, India will need help from the conditions as the left-hander bats at five and not the opening slot like in white-ball cricket.
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