The Australian team by their skipper Steve Smith reached India on Saturday to play a five match ODI series followed by three T20s scheduled to commence from September 17 in Chepauk. Steve Smith in a press conference yesterday revealed that the team has high hopes for this series.
The men in blue skipper Virat Kohli who recently scored his 30th ODI ton equaling Australian great Ricky Ponting will look to continue his good form from the Sri Lanka series and lead his team to another series win, six in a row.
Smith in an interview revealed that keeping India’s main man Kohli quiet will be the key reason for the success of the Aussies on this tour. He further mentioned that he is not concerned about the differences between him and the host skipper.
While talking to the press after the practice session, the Australian captain said, “I am not too concerned about the differences with Kohli. He is obviously a very good player and has a phenomenal ODI record. Hopefully, we can keep him quiet as much as possible in this series. If we do that then hopefully it can go a long way in us having success on this tour.”
Smith said that India has a good bowling attack despite giving rest to the spin duo of Ashwin and Jadeja.” This is a completely different format compared to Test cricket. Axar Patel has done well pretty well for them. (Yuzvendra) Chahal is in the squad as well. Kuldeep Yadav is a good bowler too. They certainly have some good spin options and we have got to play them really well throughout the series,” Smith further added.
Talking about the’ brain-fade’ controversy when Australia visited India earlier this year for the Test series, he said that this series will be played in a good spirit. He also recalled about the wickets that they were presented last time when Australia visited India for an ODI series and said that they were all flat wickets. He further added that the whole team is looking forward to what kind of wickets they are greeted with.
The 28-year-old captain said that the team will rely heavily on the leg-spinner Adam Zampa. He mentioned, “I hope so; he has got a pretty good record for us in the last year or two. He has got some experience playing in the IPL. We know what to expect from Zampa. If he gets his opportunity, he can hopefully have some success on this tour.”
The Australian teams will kickstart the series with a practice game against the Board President XI scheduled to be played on 12 September before the first ODI against the host on September 17.
