Australia vs India: Ravi Ashwin doesn’t want visitors to undermine their opponents

On their previous two tours of Australia, especially in the Test matches, India strained to find their feet and were eventually beaten black and blue. In the red-ball fixtures, they haven’t won a single Test in Australia in the 2011-12 and 2014-15 series. After four years, India, captained by Virat Kohli, are scheduled to play four Tests, starting December 6 at the renowned Adelaide Oval.

Prior to the high-intensity series, many have touted the visiting team as the favourites for the reason that Australia, led by wicketkeeper-batsman Tim Paine, doesn’t have Steve Smith and David Warner, two of their stalwarts, in their ranks owing to the ball-tampering scandal.

It’s never easy to tour Australia

However, Indian off-break bowler Ravi Ashwin reckons Australia will initially start as the favourites. He put forth Australia’s resounding show performance against England last year in the Ashes as an example in order to back his bold comments.

“The whole talk about India starting favourites, even when Australia came to India they were talking us up and it looks like more of a strategy (to) us. I personally think you have to go one day at a time. It’s never easy to come over to Australia and win a series.

In the Ashes, they almost whitewashed England, knocked them over, so as far as I’m concerned they are starting favourites and it’s very important for us to chip away every single day, every single ball and if we can get our noses ahead, stay ahead,” Ashwin was quoted as saying in Times Now.

India are currently playing a four-day warm-up match against Cricket Australia XI at the iconic Sydney Cricket Ground. Their batting did reasonably well as five of their batsmen scored half-centuries. KL Rahul was the only man who missed out on a big score. The bowlers tended to strain a wee bit on the third day.

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