Head coach Ravi Shastri on Sunday vowed that India will “take no prisoners” in their quest to win a Test series in Australia for the first time, but cautioned against underestimating the struggling home team.
India play four Tests and three one-day internationals from early December, with three Twenty20s before that, starting in Brisbane on Wednesday.
Despite Australia’s form nosediving since the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa in March, which resulted in bans for Steve Smith and David Warner, the former all-rounder doesn’t believe they have lost their aura.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “Once you have a sporting culture in you, you will always have that. I have always believed no team is weak at home.
“We might have three or four players not playing when a team comes to India, but god forbid if anyone says it’s a weak Indian team.
“Similarly, we are taking no prisoners. We want to go out and put our best foot forward and focus on our game rather than what’s happening outside.”
Shastri didn’t want to be drawn on Australia’s new “friendlier” approach to playing cricket under coach Justin Langer, which has seen them tone down the confrontational style that brought then so much success. He has instructed his team to play hard but fair.
“At the end of the day, it’s the cricket that talks,” Shastri said. “I don’t care if a [Glenn] McGrath or [Shane] Warne said something or didn’t. They would have still taken wickets, it’s as simple as that.
“When you are good at what you do and if you can do it consistently, it doesn’t matter which side you are playing for, that cricketer will do well and so will the team.”
South Africa captain Faf du Plessis, who has fed off the Australian in-your-face attitude in recent years, urged them last week not to totally abandon this aspect of their game.
His Indian counterpart Virat Kohli is another who has thrived previously on the combative rivalry. Shastri did not believe the hosts’ new, polite approach would affect his skipper.
“He [Kohli] won’t take his foot off the gas that is for sure,” Shastri warned. “He loves coming to Australia. He is passionate about his game. The pitches here suit his style of play.
“He has matured from what you saw four years ago. He has played all around the globe since then. He has captained the side – that alone comes with a tag of responsibility, which has fit well on his shoulders. He has adjusted extremely well.”
While India have maintained home supremacy with a thrashing of the West Indies in Tests (2-0), ODIs (3-1) and T20s (3-0), they have not been as dominant away. They lost 2-1 in Tests to South Africa and were then outplayed in England 4-1. India have also never won a Test series in Australia, dating back to 1947.
Asked what his team has learnt from the series in South Africa and England, Shastri said, “It’s about seizing those big moments. If you look at those Test matches, the scoreline doesn’t really tell you the whole story.
“There were some very Test matches and we lost some big moments badly, which cost us the series.
“It could have been just an hour in a session over four days which made all the difference whether it was in South Africa or England. You’ve got to learn from that as a batsman or a bowler.”
Shastri also turned down the suggestion that this is a make-or-break tour for India. “The endeavour is to get better when you go overseas. If you look at teams that travel now around the world, there aren’t too many sides [that win].
“Australia did it in the 90s and the turn of the century, South Africa did it for a while, but other than those two, if you look at the last five or six years, you tell me which team has travelled well. So why pick on India?” he added.
With inputs from AFP