Whom should Australia and India play at Adelaide? Gavaskar and Border weigh in

According to Allan Border, Australia should go in with the makeshift pair of Marcus Harris and Matthew Wade. Sunil Gavaskar felt Mayank Agarwal and Shubman Gill should be the Indian openers.
Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli and Australian captain Tim Paine with the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. (Photo | BCCI/ Twitter)
Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli and Australian captain Tim Paine with the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. (Photo | BCCI/ Twitter)

CHENNAI: Doubts and concerns over the combination, especially the opening pair in batting, has been a common factor between the teams that are set to resume their rivalry for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. As December 17 comes close, India appear to have finalised on the two at least for Adelaide, while the picture in the Australian camp still looks unclear.

A virtual interaction session on Monday featuring the duo after whom the trophy is named, followed by their replies to questions from the media, gave an indication of what the teams might be thinking. According to Allan Border, Australia should go in with the makeshift pair of Marcus Harris and Matthew Wade. Sunil Gavaskar felt Mayank Agarwal and Shubman Gill should be the Indian openers.

"Prithvi Shaw has to assess his game and tighten up his defence. You may get runs on pitches not offering much to the bowlers, but playing away from home an opening batsman should give himself time to see the conditions. Shaw plays too many shots early on. Gill as Mayank's partner would be my choice," said Gavaskar. Border, who was in Sydney for the practice games, felt Shaw "plays a shot every ball", adding that he likes what he has seen of Gill.

Australia's opening problem is more acute than India's, in the absence of two openers and the poor form of another. Border feels Harris has to be one, even though he has not made a strong case for himself in the warm-up games. "For the other one, I would speak to Wade. He is a fighter sort of a cricketer. He has opened in one-day cricket and can do the job," he said.

Border is excited about Cameron Green, who scored a century in the first warm-up before being ruled out of the second for showing signs of concussion after being hit on the head by a shot from Jasprit Bumrah. He remains a part of the Test squad. "You have to look at the future and here is the future. Green is technically correct as a batsman and bowls a heavy ball, in the 140s. Indians don't know much of his as a batsman or bowler," said the 1987 World Cup-winning captain.

Smith's return to captaincy
Border: There was a time when I thought why make Steve Smith the captain again and revisit Sandpapergate and all that has happened. I gave it another thought and felt that he was harshly treated. He has served his sentence and learnt his lessons. If Tim Paine decides to move on, Smith will make a better choice than Pat Cummins.

Too many hits on the head
Gavaskar: I think batsmen these days are too committed to the front press. If you notice, a batsman doesn't get hit on the head if both his feet are inside the crease. Because they are committed to the front foot, it is not helping that back and across movement and transfer of weight. That's why they are unable to get out of the way. 

Absence of Virat Kohli
Border: It will leave a huge gap in that batting line-up. It's hard to fill that and the Aussies will enjoy the fact that they don't have to bowl to him.
Gavaskar: Huge boost for the Australians. He has six hundreds in Australia and it's massive for their bowlers to know that he will not be playing the last three Tests.

Saha or Pant?
Gavaskar: Play Pant because of the runs he scores. But make him the No 6 so that you can have five bowlers to take 20 wickets.

India-Australia Test series is live on Sony Six, Sony Ten 1, Sony Ten 3 channels.

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