India have their “best chance” to win a Test series in Australia for the first time, Sachin Tendulkar has said. He doesn’t expect it to be easy, but he suggested that the current Australian team, which will most likely be without Steven Smith and David Warner, is inexperienced and not at the level of past teams India have played against.
“Possibly our best chance to go out there and beat them,” Tendulkar told Cricketnext. “If you see the Australia teams in the past and compare them to this one, yes we have a very good chance.
“I mean playing cricket at the highest level, I don’t think it is at the highest level at this stage. I think they have had better sides in the past. They have had better players with more experience, this is considerably an inexperienced side.
“They are kind of getting back together and forming a solid unit. But Australians are known for being competitive and I won’t be surprised if they put up a competitive fight. To go out there and challenge them is also not going to be easy, but we have the ammunition to go out there and challenge them.
“We have good fast bowlers, quality spinners. We have good batters. You win Test matches when you score a lot of runs on the board.”
Scoring those runs, Tendulkar said, would require India’s batsmen to respect the new ball. If they did that, he reckoned they could cash in and play their shots in “beautiful” batting conditions.
“I think when you go to Australia, especially playing with Kookaburra, it’s the first 20-25 overs that one needs to respect the hardness of the seam, the hardness of the ball,” he said. “After the ball has worn off, then the wickets are beautiful to bat on.
“I would say we need to bat the first 25 overs differently, respect the hardness of the ball. And later on, most of our guys are big shot players and they like attacking approach. Australian surfaces are perfect for that.” (ESPNCricinfo)
