A review of the India test Series

 The test series is over so let us review it.

Pitches

I thought the first two pitches were fine, favouring spin but there is nothing wrong with that. The third pitch was too much in favour of spin and you need luck to stay in. the last pitch was a road and a borathon. If the last tiw pitches were similar to the first two and we would have had 4 results with the ball dominating the bat.

Captains

Cummins had a series he would want to forget. He was overwhelmed and perhaps let emotion get the better of him. Smith And Sharma were similar. Both good captains when on top ( who isn't?) but both lacked imagination when when not.

Bowling

Quite obviously the fast bowlers were lacking bowling on spinning pitches. given Siraj got Kawaja LBW to a late inswinger in the first test it was strange to see most fast bowlers deny any swing by bowling around the wicket to a lefthander/righthander. 

to state the obvious the Indian spin twins were superb as usual in India. Axa surprisingly was  ineffective. how much longer they continue to play is problematic. They are spinners so they could play until their forties.

Lyons was certainly up to the task in India. what was surprising was Murphy and Kuhnemann in their first tests were superg in backing him up. I am sceptical of whether they can be successful outside of India as neither are big spinners.

Batting

Once again the much vaunted Indian batting lineup failed to deliver. Yes Sharma hit a superb century but overall the Indian batting lineup was not much better than Australia's except in one regard. The three spinners  are almost allrounders indeed Axa could almost be regarded  as India's best batsman. 

Australia's batting was certainly susceptible to good spin on a spinning track. Both Kawaja and Head showed they could play spin as well as any other batsmen in the team however we had too many batting collapses too often.

Wicket keepers

Carey had a great first tour of India. his techniques was very good. Bharat di not have a good technique. too often he took balls near his feet for fast bowlers.He took some great catches off the spinners but dropped some as well.

I think the series was far closer than it should have been, India clearly did not turn up for the third test when they could not lose the series. We should acknowledge however India had neither Bumrah nor Pant. Both were sorely missed.

Both teams are aging and over time will need to bring in younger players. By the time of the nest series in Australia fast bowlers on both sides will be different as will be the batsmen.

Onto the Ashes

Whoopsy

I really should examine the test championship game to be played between these two sides at the oval in June.

Australia will go back to three quicks and Lyons whereas what will India do? Replace Axa with say Pandya if fit and replace Siraj with a fit Bumrah. Iyer loks  injury prone as well.

The conditions should favour Australia and thus we should be favourites