India outplayed Australia in preparation and execution: Saba Karim

Saba Karim believes India outplayed the Australian team with their meticulous preparation and execution in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

India's 2018 series win Down Under was somewhat muted because Australia was without their best two batsmen - Steve Smith and David Warner.

This time, the Australians played a near full-strength side while the visitors had to overcome almost a dozen injuries.

In an exclusive interview with Sportskeeda's Indranil Basu, Saba Karim pointed to the same.

According to the former wicketkeeper, albeit Australian cricket needs more depth, one can take nothing away from the tactical acumen shown by Team India.

"It depends on from which perspective you look at things. Australian cricket obviously needs more time to develop some cricketers. But they still had David Warner, Tim Paine, Steve Smith and (Marnus) Labuschagne. All these players have scored tons of runs for Australian cricket and if among the youngsters, two or three had done well, we would have said 'oh such a strong batting unit'.

"I would say that Indian bowlers made them look very fragile. Be it Steve Smith, who was able to score only one hundred, or David Warner, all of them struggled because of the kind of planning that went behind those dismissals. We were able to make them commit mistakes. In terms of our preparation and execution, India was far ahead of Australia," said Saba Karim.

The behind-the-scenes planning was conspicuous on the field throughout the 4-match series.

Whether it was the leg-side trap that worked wonders in Melbourne or the astute field placements against Steve Smith, the visitors always looked one step.

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Saba Karim analyzes the historic Gabba win

The winning moment at the Gabba

The memorable tour culminated in arguably India's greatest overseas victory.

On the back of some outstanding batting shows by Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara and Rishabh Pant, India breached the Gabba by scoring over 300 runs on the fifth day of the final Test.

Dissecting the victory, Saba Karim said it was the Pujara-Pant partnership that took the game away from the hosts.

"When international bowlers are up against a rock-solid Pujara on one end and a belligerent Rishabh Pant on the other, there's not much you can do. So you have to be flexible. The Australian team did their level best to get rid of these two players but once that kind of partnership is forced between such two players, it's not easy to make plans.

"I think that's where Australia faltered. They can't get rid of Pujara who was so technically correct at one end while they were leaking the runs at the other end. I felt as if between lunch and tea Australia realized that the game is slipping from their hands and they tended to bring in too many changes which didn't work too well," Saba Karim concluded.