We’re already two months into the new year, can you believe that? You know what time it is! Here’s Cricket Huddle coming back with our signature State of Cricket podcast! Since it is the new year of 2023, it seems like it’s also time to start the mind games anew! At least that’s what Australia seems to be doing three days before the start of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. That is what we will be discussing today, so now it’s time to turn it over to the guys to hear their takes.

The “mind games” seemingly started when Steve Smith defended the Aussies’ decision to not play a tour game in India before this iteration of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. This was the result of Australia getting a different pitch during practice than the one they got in the Test game(s). Ravichandran Ashwin then added more fuel to the fire by saying that this is the Australian style of playing cricket: mind games before the game and sledging while on the field. Ultimately, we think that tour games are quite possibly irrelevant as long as a team is able to practice properly on their own and can be prepared for the games they have to play regardless of what happened pre-match. It’s just a warm-up, so it shouldn’t be such a deciding factor in how the games or series should go.

However, an intriguing point made was that maybe India should be the ones having a tour game instead. After all, we had players missing for various reasons: the marriages of Lokesh Rahul and Axar Patel, as well as the injuries to Mohd. Shami, Shreyas Iyer, and Ravindra Jadeja. Shami faced injuries twice late in 2022 before returning back for the Sri Lanka and New Zealand series. Jadeja is coming back after a six-month layoff period, while Iyer just got hurt during the New Zealand series and will miss at least the first Test in this Australia series. Speaking of injuries, India has played without spearhead Jasprit Bumrah for months now and there have been a few other key injuries as well (Shardul Thakur, Deepak Chahar, Rishabh Pant’s accident, etc.)

Among other topics discussed by the crew are: the net bowler (Mahesh Pithiya) making waves for troubling Steve Smith in practice, Australian coach Andrew McDonald talking about pitches and training sessions, the form of the Indian top five batters, and our predictions for the first Test (Indian playing XI) and rest of the series (the result of the matches).

If you are interested in the rest of the conversation, please check out the links below: