With indian ground staff more inclined towards making a neutral wicket,the upcoming home test series with the aussies will be a tough nut to break.

some stats-icc test ratings,team standings.

Team	Matches	Points	Rating
South Africa	32	3965	124
England	41	4825	118
Australia	42	4916	117
Pakistan	29	3148	109
India	37	3879	105

the upcoming test series with australia offers 4 test matches to settle bad blood against the best in business and hope for  a marginal improvement in its test ratings.the home soil anticipates turn and damp on the 4th and 5th day.hence, indian spinners will have busy days and testing times ahead,lot of shoe laces at lot times more will  need to be tied up by the likes of regular spinners -such as harbhajan singh, r.ashwin.

australia’s current test form:-

1st Test

14–18 December 2012 Scorecard

Australia  450/5d (131 overs)

v

Sri Lanka 336 (109.3 overs)

Australia won by 137 runs

2nd Test

26–30 December 2012 Scorecard

Sri Lanka  156 (43.4 overs)

v

Australia 460 (134.4 overs)

Australia won by an innings and 201 runs

3rd Test

3–7 January 2013 Scorecard

Sri Lanka 294 (87.4 overs)

v

Australia  432/9d (107 overs)

Australia won by 5 wickets

however,for india-the recent test match with england turned out to be an eye opener with its turning wicket favouring the visitors  to victory. The dwell with pakistan gave a quick crash course in bowling department,both spinning lessons and fast bowling lessons

.the general commotion in the top order with the retirement of rahul dravid, vvs laxman has cracked up the indian defence line and upcoming indian pacers or rather indian version of pace bowlers need to pump up to explode their wrath and match evenly with the aussian class of  pace attack.

junkmans’ money on for this series – virat kohli, cheteshwar pujara,r.ashwin,b.kumar.

q’s- will the gentle giant ishant sharma and only swing no sling bhuvaneshwar kumar step up to zaheer’s shoes?

q’s- will the prodigy kid of captain cool- SIR  r. jadeja continue his dream run from the recent one day series with england and take it one level up to the kangaroos or get back to old state of being mocked by countless-hopeless countrymen?

q’s- will sachin tendulkar settle the 100th ton havoc series’ outmissed chance with the aussies?

q’s- most importantly: will india’s inability to play good length bouncers and short pitched balls be exposed?

it may all come down to one question: how green is the grass on indian wickets? or maybe more to the class of indian test batting line up,but with indian bowling department still struggling for a spark ,a slight fielding improvement in the side is a welcome plus to its armoury but at the end all departments of the game will be tested to breaking point  in the upcoming series.

we can be certain of one thing,alongside suresh raina in the practice nets,lot of others are practicing to duck the odd one and pull the lolly to distance because there may not be many in the gift wraps thrown as a a house warming present by the humble visitors arriving in the last week of feb.

we can adopt to atithi devo bhavah ( treating  visitor to your home like god) or “give no quarter” from the moment go in the series or a bit of both.this is the time to prove our mettle.

#meanwhile sachin tendulkar showing keen interest in music ,inaugrations and other hobbies to relax his overly – pressurizing and mentally taxing life – good shot sir!! 😀

junkmans’ conclusion – with constancy of yuvraj,dhoni,sachin being fixed as predicted or unpredicted, the only real tug of war will be between the new guys and a rope  pulling their guts out of their skins and showing their long awaited potential along with their right to be in the international squad.

junkmans’ test squad score card on readiness – fielding -(2.5/3),bowling- (1.5/3),batting- (2/3), extra (1/1) for tendulkar effect.

total junkmans’ score-7/10.if sir r.jadeja fires well,we can add extra 0.5 to bowling & batting combined,taking the score to 7.5/10.if we get critical with bowling and expects r.jadeja to fail we deduct 0.5 extra and 0.5. from bowling card making score to – 6.5/10

junkmans’ comments – this analysis is reasonable and hopeful.

 

adiosa,

junkman