Welcome back to Cricket Huddle’s premier podcast, State of Cricket! This is the best cricket podcast on the internet by the fans, of the fans, and for the fans.  This time, the topic of discussion is focused on Australia’s performance in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy first Test. All that talk beforehand, which we discussed last week, about the mind games and the pitch but the Aussies still faltered when the time came to walk the walk!

The Aussies lost the battle before the toss with all their overanalyzing and over-strategizing. They thought too much into things that shouldn’t have mattered so much. For example, the Australians thought that the particular pitch in Nagpur was going to be detrimental to left-handed batters. Newsflash: Australia got bowled out for 268 total runs in two innings, while two Indian left-handers in Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel had 154 runs in India’s only innings batting. Well, I guess Australia was technically right in that their left-handers could not perform. Four batters (David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Matt Renshaw, Alex Carey) and one bowler who bats left-handed (Todd Murphy) combined for 38 out of 177 runs in the first innings and 29 out of 91 runs in the second innings. Carey top-scored among these five, scoring 36 and 10 respectively.

The problem with the Aussies was that they were the mentally weakest side facing India in a long time. On paper, they look like they should be able to handle anything that comes their way. However, it seems like all their prior mind games may have shifted the focus from their actual preparation for the match, and the result showed. Among other things, we also discussed Rohit Sharma’s performance (one we think is one of his best since taking over as captain), the Suryakumar Yadav vs. Shubman Gill debate (and what Shreyas Iyer brings to the team), Jasprit Bumrah (what format(s) he should play once he’s back), and more bewilderment as to how Lokesh Rahul continues to make Indian national team appearances!

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