Srinagar: Former Australia coach John Buchanan has said that India has ageing players in the squad ahead of much awaited Border-Gavaskar series.
John Buchanan was the head of the backroom staff of the near-invincible Australian side in the early 2000s. Buchanan partnered with Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting to make Australia one of the fiercest cricket teams ever across formats.
Meanwhile over the years, the rivalry between India and Australia has only gone from strength to strength and in the last decade, India has had the upper hand in red-ball cricket, both home and away.
India have won four Test series on the bounce against Australia and recently became the only team to beat Australia in Australia in successive series to take their overall tally of victories in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy to 10.
Buchanan said both India and Australia have plenty of ageing players at disposal but that will not be a deterrent to the competition between the sides.
“I looked at the ages, and India has got some ageing players in that side; notably Rohit Sharma, who’s 37, and Virat Kohli is 35, Ravichandran Ashwin, if he tours, he’s 37, and you look at the Australian side, there’s only one or two players who are under 30.
“It’ll be very much a battle again between the very good pace bowling attacks of both sides and how well the top order players of both sides can deal with the ball that will bounce, seam and probably swing a little bit more in the day-night game in Adelaide,” Buchanan told PTI on Thursday.
“Australia (has), since losing to India in the last series, the pace bowling attack with (off-spinner Nathan) Lyon, backed up now by Cameron Green or Mitch Marsh, is just a really, really powerful bowling lineup,” he added.
“India’s top order, (Yashasvi) Jaiswal, (Rohit) Sharma himself, (Virat) Kohli, possibly Iyer… they’ve got to bat really well to establish totals and then the likes of (Jasprit) Bumrah, (Mohammed) Shami, (Mohammed) Siraj will come into their own,” he said.