It has been six months since India last played Australia, the highly competitive, at time acrimonious Test series ended up in India’s favour, Ajinkya Rahane in Dharamsala sealed the deal. However, a lot has changed since then, six months is a very long time in modern cricket, within that time frame, India played the Indian Premier League, lost in the finals of the Champions Trophy, new coach was appointed after ugly spat between skipper and coach, and demolished Windies and Sri Lanka in their home turf.
While for the visitors, they also played in the Indian Premier League, travelled to England, got knocked out in the group stage of the Champions Trophy, however, their contracts issue grabbed the headlines, players threating to stop playing. Eventually, the matter was settled and the side travelled to Dhaka, where they handed the home side their first ever Test win against them but Steve Smith’s side regrouped and clinched the series. They now face India in mandatory ODI and T20I.
The India-Australia match is bound to engage fans, the rivalry and banter are the plus point apart from some good cricket. Australia is usually upbeat when it comes to limited-over cricket in India as their travels for white ball cricket has been largely fruitful, including a World Cup and a Champions Trophy win.
The two sides started playing regular bilateral series since 1998, it sort of became more periodic, since then Australia has emerged triumphant in five of the seven ODI series which includes tri-nation tournaments in 1998 and 2003. The 2010 series, which saw two washouts and an India victory in Visakhapatnam, and the 2013 run-glut have only recently bucked the trend.
India ranked 3rd in the ICC ODI rankings played two series recently, against West Indies and Sri Lanka where they outclassed the home side but Australia will be a totally different ball game, they are wounded and under pressure following poor form in past twelve months, thus they are hungry for success and beating India on their home turf will surely salvage the lost pride.