India pacer Ishant Sharma on Tuesday said his team was taking the tour match against a Cricket Australia XI very seriously ahead of the four-Test series starting next month.
The Cricket Australia XI will take on the Indians in a four-day match in Sydney starting Wednesday ahead of the first Test in Adelaide, which begins on December 6.
“The tour game is pretty serious for us because you can set a tone [for the series],” said Ishant. “You get to know the conditions because you’re playing here after a long time. It’s a pretty important game for everyone.”
The 30-year-old fast bowler is on his fourth Test tour of Australia since first going there in 2007-’08 as a 19-year-old. Ishant tasted Test series defeats on all his previous three outings Down Under but he said the team is motivated to set that record straight this time.
“We are pretty motivated,” he told reporters. “The biggest thing for us right now is to win the [Test] series. That’s what everybody is focussing on. We’re not even thinking about individual performances. We have just one aim – to win a series in Australia.”
Ishant impressed the cricketing world during his first Test series in Australia in 2007-’08, when he troubled Ricky Ponting with his bowling. However, the lanky pacer did not quite have the same effect during India’s last two tours.
Asked if that was playing on his mind, he said, “I think I have played for 11 years now so I don’t need to think that I need to [prove myself]. I am not really the kind of person who thinks about what happened in the past. I am always looking forward to the future. I am looking forward to doing well on this tour.”
India go into the Test series as favourites. For the first time, India have a better batting and bowling line-up compared with Australia, who are missing former captain Steve Smith and his deputy David Warner through suspensions.
However, Ishant reiterated his captain Virat Kohli’s comments in saying that India are not taking the Australians lightly. “To be very honest, we don’t think about all these things,” he said. “It always depends on a given day. We know in cricket whoever is playing for their country are good enough. We don’t take anyone or anything lightly until we get the results.”
India have five pace bowlers in their squad – Ishant, Mohammed Shami, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah and Umesh Yadav. Asked about the competition within the Indian squad for spots in the playing XI, Ishant said it’s a “great opportunity” for everyone because “you have a healthy competition in the team”.
Asked if the Indian pacers are targeting any particular Australian batsmen, Ishant said, “We are not focussing on any particular batsman. We want to get everyone out.”
When pressed further by an Australian journalist, who said that the home team’s batsmen are quite inexperienced, Ishant refused to take the bait, saying, “I never think too much about all these things. If you go with this kind of feeling, you relax a bit. It’s always better to be on your toes all the time and be ready for opportunities when you hit the ground.”
Ishant’s facial expressions mocking Smith during Australia’s tour of India last year had become a hit on social media. Asked if he planned to do it again, even if Smith wasn’t playing, Ishant said, “It’s very difficult to say right now. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the series. Maybe when the series starts, we’ll get to know what face we need to make,” he added, laughing.
Ishant also thanked the thousands of Indian fans who came to support the team during the three-match T20I series that ended last week, and hoped for similar support during the Tests. “It was totally amazing,” he said, of the crowd support.
“You don’t feel like you’re touring abroad because you see so many [Indian] fans watching the game and cheering you. I think it’s a tremendous feeling for every team member,” he added.
