ODI series in India - An important one for the Australian youngsters

George Bailey- A huge responsibility given of captaining an Aussie side

The upcoming ODI series in India can well be another failure for the Australian team ahead of their Ashes series against England. After losing 0-4 to India, their psychological weakness was clearly shown during their terrible Ashes series in England.

The current Australian team, apart from a few, is a set of inexperienced players. With the retirement of some great Australian batting legends in the past one or two years, this new Aussie team is suffering in the batting department.

In the last 6 ODI innings, just two centuries were scored from the Australian side – Michael Clarke and Shane Watson – both “experienced” players. This clearly shows that the youngsters haven’t performed to their best, unlike the Indian team where youngsters like Shikhar Dhawan and Ravindra Jadeja have become star players already.

Recently, former Australian captain Ian Chappel has also criticized the selectors to agree to this tour.

“Prior to the 2010-11 Ashes in Australia, the team toured India. They lost the Test series 2-0 and followed that with an adverse Ashes result at home. Having recently lost an away Ashes series by 3-0, Australia are tempting fate by embarking on another Indian tour ahead of another home Ashes.”

Michael Clarke’s injury is also a concern for the Australian team. In the Border-Gavaskar test series, he scored the only century for Australia. He played spin excellently ,negotiating it by coming down the pitch-showing his great footwork .

Michael Clarke’s injury-A huge blow to Australia

He scored his debut century on those turning pitches and never looked in trouble against spin. Without him, Australia will be banking more on Shane Watson who is the only recognized experienced batsman in the Australian side.

Shane Watson had a forgetful tour of India with the bat, earlier this year. He scored just 99 runs in 6 innings with an ordinary average of just around 17. He needs to perform well in the upcoming ODI series and make up for the absence of Clarke. He scored a century in the recently concluded English tour but is not that consistent.

George Bailey has to now perform the roles of a typical aggressive Aussie captain in the absence of Clarke. He has played just 25 ODIs for Australia and has been given the job to captain the team against the World Champions and that too in their backyard. All hopes cling on Bailey to give good a fight to the Indians and it will be interesting to see his tactics against India.

“If we are going to play good one-day cricket, if we win this series, we will need all 13 or 14 of us to play really well,” Bailey says.

Other players like Callum Ferguson, Glenn Maxwell ,James Faulkner, Mitchell Johnson and Nathan Coulter –Nile have made it to the squad on the basis of their performances in IPL and CLT20. Honestly speaking, they really performed well there but this ODI series will be all together a different thing .

Fast bowlers like Faulkner-performed well throughout the IPL with Rajasthan Royals- and the experienced Johnson can form a formidable bowling attack and put pressure on the Indian batsmen by taking early wickets.

On the whole this series will either dampen Australian players’ spirit ahead of the Ashes down under, or it will rebuild Australia’s ODI legacy.