Five Australian batsmen who gave India the most trouble

The recently concluded One-Day International between India and Australia in Chennai, exposed the inexperience of Australian top and middle order when they were reduced to 35/4 by the Indians before Glenn Maxwell took on young Kuldeep Yadav.

But in the past, there have been cricketers who were nightmares to Indian bowlers. Here, let us look back on five Aussie batsmen who had a great run against the Indians both home and away.

Steven Smith

Steven Smith, one of the best players of current generation, troubled the Indian bowlers when India toured Australia prior to the World Cup 2015.

Smith has already scored 1429 Test runs against India at a daunting average of 84.05. He also has couple of hundreds and a fifty in ODIs as well.

Smith shuffles across the stumps which covers for any lateral movement, and he uses his feet to negate the effects of spin on turning tracks.

The young Australian is a prized wicket in the ongoing series. It should be interesting to see how Indian bowlers would look to have the young Australian skipper fall in their trap during the latter's first ODI tour to India.

Allan Border

Allan Border is one of the highest run getters for Australia, mainly in Test cricket. But he had a good run against India in 50 overs version of the game as well. Border scored 1104 runs in 35 innings at an average of 42.46 with a highest of 105*.

Though Border was not all that aggressive or flamboyant, he used to play fierce cuts and pulls off the backfoot. He is more known for his admirable fights in the middle and arguably the best Australian batsman against the spin in the last five decades or so.

The Test series between India and Australia is named the Border-Gavaskar Trophy partly in honour of the iconic batsman.

Matthew Hayden

The hard hitting southpaw, destroyed the most gifted bowling attacks from all over the world. He along with Adam Gilchrist and Simon Katich at times, punished the bowlers from the word go more often than not.

Hayden particularly enjoyed his time against India, scoring 1450 runs in 28 outings at 53.7 with a strike rate of 86. He went past the 100 run landmark thrice against India, with the highest of 126.

Hayden used the sweep shot against the Indian spinners to great effect and thus caused lot of issues to the spinners, who otherwise would run through the most formidable line ups.

Michael Clarke

Michael John Clarke, having made his Test match debut at M.Chinnaswamy Stadium, grew in stature in the years that followed. Called "Pup" by his teammates, Clarke had a wonderful run against India with two hundreds and four fifties in ODIs piling up 858 runs at 39 with a strike rate of 84.

He also had a Test match triple hundred against India.

Generally a middle order batsman, Clarke did well when asked to open as well as in the lower middle order. When Australia faced India in the 1st ODI of 7-match ODI series in 2007, Clarke scored a graceful knock of 130 batting at 4, before being run out.

The former Australian skipper also bowled slow left arm bowling and has surprised the opposition number of times.

Ricky Ponting

Ricky Ponting is arguably the best batsman that Australia has ever produced after Donald Bradman. Being one of the greatest batsmen of all times, "Punter" scored 2164 runs at 40.07 with a handy strike rate of 81.41 against India.

He played a World Cup winning knock of 140* against an Indian attack consisting of Javagal Srinath, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh and Ashish Nehra in 2003. Ponting used to play graceful pull shots that made him accumulate hundreds of runs. He was troubled by young Ishant Sharma and Harbhajan Singh when India toured Australia in 2007/08.

The Smiths, the Warners and the Maxwells have to replicate what these Aussie legends have done in the past to remain competitive in the ongoing series. We are all aware of the talents that this bunch of Australian cricketers has.

Will they crumble under pressure against Bhuvi, Bumrah, Pandya and the wrist spinners or will they dominate the Indian bowling?