Australia vs India: Flop XI of the Test series

The Indian team scripted history by winning a Test series for the first time ever in Australia. Virat Kohli and his men defeated the hosts by 2-1 in the four-match series to retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Some outstanding performances from some of the Indian players made this unimaginable possible.

Also, there were a few brilliant efforts from the Australian players. However, some of them turned out to be massive disillusionment. They did not perform up to their potential and didn’t make any impact in the series. India managed to make do with it but the hosts, with their best players missing, were in a flux and couldn’t cope with it which resulted in first Test series loss at the hands of India.

Here is the Flop XI of the series:

1. Murali Vijay

After he scored a century in the practice game against Cricket Australia XI, the expectations rose up high on Murali Vijay. Many believed that he would play a critical role in the team’s success. However, he ended up frustrating everyone with his poor form.

The opening batsman scored 49 runs in four innings at an average of about 12 and was dropped from the XI for the last two Tests. With age not on his side, it seems to be tough for Vijay to make it back into the Test team and his career seems to be in doldrums as India won’t play any Tests now until World Cup.

2. KL Rahul

Another major setback in the series was KL Rahul. He hardly played up to his full potential and his shot selection was miserable. There were instances when he neither committed onto the front foot nor the back foot and ended up losing his wicket.

There were also a few judgemental errors about leaving the ball and he doesn’t seem to be in the best of mind frames at the moment. Rahul scored 57 runs in five innings and was dropped for the third Test. He had a chance to make amends in Sydney Test in which India amassed 622 runs but ended up mustering only 9 runs.

3. Aaron Finch

Australia’s limited-overs specialist Aaron Finch made his Test debut last year against Pakistan. He had a decent start to his career in the longer format of the game. But, eventually, his technical weaknesses were exposed and thus struggled.

He seemed to found it hard to pick the ball off the bowler’s hand. Therefore, Finch failed to counter the swing that was on offer for the Indian pacers on a majority of the occasions. He scored 97 runs in 6 innings before dropping for the final game of the series.

4. Peter Handscomb

Peter Handscomb is one of those players, who had it all to excel but failed to execute. The middle-order batsman got off to good starts on a majority of the occasions. However, he failed to sustain the tougher situations and threw his wicket away.

The 27-year-old was dropped for the third Test of the series. Then, with a strong BBL performance, he made his way back into the eleven. Also, Mitchell Marsh‘s failure helped his cause. Handscomb, in five innings, only managed to pile up 105 runs at an average of 21 and even his Test career is on the shaky grounds.

5. Hanuma Vihari

There wasn’t much wrong that Hanuma Vihari did in the series. A youngster, who is still finding his feet, tried to do everything that the team management asked him to do. Moreover, he was an extremely handy bowler and picked up timely wickets for the team.

But, what was disappointing was his show with the willow in hand. He got his opportunity in the second Test after Rohit Sharma got injured. He scored 20 and 28 in the two innings of the game and failed to convert the starts on both the occasions. Opening in the third Test didn’t really suit his style of play and thus he only managed to score 21 runs in the game.

Yet again, he had a wonderful opportunity in the fourth Test. He got off the tough blocks, took the blows, sustained the tough period but threw the start away after he got out on 42. Vihari has to concentrate on his temperament and should look to play the long innings.

6. Tim Paine (c)(wk)

The Australian skipper also had a dismal series. Tim Paine was good with the gloves. However, there were times when he erred with his captaincy tactics. He let the game drift away on occasions and there wasn’t anything special about his heroics with the bat.

Paine was the kind of a wicket-keeper batsman of the olden days. He came in to bat lower down the order, got decent scores and failed to convert his starts into big totals. Paine scored 174 runs in 7 innings at an average of 25 and has to improve his batting by a long way in the upcoming Sri Lanka series. He will be leading this flop XI.

7. Mitchell Marsh

Mitch Marsh has been a sort of a nothing cricketer in the last few months. He is neither contributing with the bat nor with the ball. Although he is trying to be equally potent in both the departments of the game, the 27-year-old is completely losing his way trying to pull this off.

It is important for the younger Marsh to concentrate on his batting and be that part-time bowler who can come in handy at times. He only managed to aggregate 19 runs on a good batting deck at the MCG. He went wicketless in the same game and was then dropped for the fourth Test.

8. Ravi Ashwin

It wasn’t pleasing one bit to see Ravi Ashwin injured right after the first game of the series and therefore miss out on the remainder of the action. The off-spinner has to work on his fitness as it could potentially be a huge blow to the team had it been a stronger opposition. Also, the skipper is to be blamed here for over-bowling him and not using the other resources properly.

In the first Test, Ashwin bowled 86.5 overs which almost accounts to an entire day of play. In as many overs, the 32-year-old picked up 6 wickets which makes his strike rate go up sky high. He nearly bowled 87 balls on an average to pick each of those wickets which is the highest in the series. His parter-in-crime, Ravindra Jadeja also had a pretty high strike rate of 76.29.

9. Mitchell Starc

Mitchell Starc, until a few years ago, was one of the most feared bowlers in world cricket. He could swing the ball both ways, bowl yorkers at will, and also extracted reverse swing at ease. His lethal bouncers forced the batsmen to duck for guard and save themselves from getting bruised.

However, injuries have got his career slightly off the track and he isn’t the same force that he was earlier. Starc picked up 13 wickets in 4 matches at an average of 35 and strike rate of 64 which isn’t quite great for a bowler of his standards. He wasn’t precise with the areas where he bowled on most occasions and hardly troubled the batsmen copping a lot of criticism.

10. Umesh Yadav

Inconsistency and Umesh Yadav go side-by-side. The pacer was terrific when the Windies toured India in October last year. He set the standards so high and completely drifted apart all of a sudden when he got an opportunity to play in Perth. The four-pronged pace attack idea completely backfired as Umesh hardly created an impact.

Yadav failed to hit the right areas and was mostly haphazard with his bowling. He picked up the wickets of Usman Khawaja and Pat Cummins in the first innings. He was wicketless in the second innings of that game which India lost by 146 runs. There was severe criticism about him being picked ahead of Bhuvneshwar Kumar.

11. Josh Hazelwood

Josh Hazelwood, over the years, has been one of the most consistent performers for Australia. He is pin-point accurate with his lines and lengths and often outfoxes the batsmen with his consistency to bowl at the same area. But, the India series wasn’t as fruitful for him.

He bowled 152.1 overs in four Tests and picked up 13 wickets. Hazlewood failed to build the pressure on the batsmen consistently which would’ve disappointed the Australian fans. His bowling strike rate of 70.23 was the highest for an Australian bowler in the series.

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