Not many expect Australia to win every Test they play these days. So big was the influence of Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne that without them the team has lost the air of invincibility surrounding them.
However, they remain the most formidable side in international cricket.
Their strike bowler Brett Lee is coming of age. In addition to still answering to the call of a tearaway fast bowler, he is now full of guile and deception. He has stepped up on the pedal and his influence in the recent 2-0 win over Sri Lanka was huge.
Australia have also won their past 14 Tests on the trot, nine of them on the home surface and two of them relative canters in Bangladesh. The demolished opponents have been as varied as South Africa, England and Sri Lanka, the rivals who are bunched just behind the Aussies as the second best sides in the world.
That’s where experts now back India to be.
The Indians have been impressive in this decade, winning overseas Tests in West Indies, England, South Africa, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and even Australia. Their batting legends show no sign of ageing. Indeed, many are inclined to put their willow wielders at par with Australia’s, if not better.
Still, it helps to see what the Australia batsmen have been up to in recent times. The team could not be bowled out even once in the entire series against Sri Lanka — indeed they lost just 11 wickets in two Tests.
They started the series with serious doubts about their opening positions. The plan with Brad Hodge had completely misfired in the one-dayers in India and they needed to come up with an answer quickly.
They found one in Phil Jacques, who smashed two hundreds in two Tests and averaged more than 100. Mike Hussey, too, hit two centuries while Michael Clarke scored one and Australia were always pushing for totals of 600-plus.
Australia’s batting remains impregnable even with the likes of Justin Langer and Damien Martyn no longer on the scene.
The machine chugs along smoothly and noiselessly but the impact is no less fearsome.
It’s difficult to count the number of bowlers who are being forced to seek another profession because of the manner in which Australia batsmen brutalise them.
There is not so much awe about their bowling, though.
Mitchell Johnson and Stuart Clarke are sure to run into the India batting machine over the next few weeks.
Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide provide slow surfaces and they won’t hold terrors for a line-up which has three middle-order batsmen with 100 Tests to their name and another one who is closing in on the milestone. It will seriously test the bragging claims of the Australians about having sufficient talent in reserve.
Shaun Tait, however, is another matter. The tall South Australia fast bowler managed only five wickets in the last two Tests but he was awesome during the World Cup where he picked up 25 wickets in 11 ODIs. His searing pace and aggression made batsmen flinch even on slow pitches in the Caribbean.
Indeed, it’s better that India fans are prepared about the fury which Tait could unleash in the forthcoming series.
Sign of it was evident in a recent Twenty20 clash against New Zealand when Tait was fearsomely fast. He seemed quicker than Lee, and Tait’s pace nearly forced the slip cordon to move to short third man.
“I was a long way back,” admitted slip fielder Hussey.
“I felt like I was sitting in the front row of the stands… It was good not to be 20m away trying to hit the damn thing.”
Tait is already thumping his chest on how he will “try and expose” India’s “difficulty against the short ball” and that would set alight the coming series.
Australia could be tempted to go with four fast bowlers against India, knowing the ease with which the India batsmen play the spinners.
Stuart MacGill isn’t fit and even when he was, four summers ago, his tweakers were milk and honey to India.
Brad Hogg has been impressive in one-dayers but Tests are altogether another business.
Still, Ricky Ponting as a rule doesn’t favour an all-pace attack. He likes to have a slow bowler up his sleeve and it’s an option which for so long has been offered to Australia captains by Warne.
Clarke can fire in a few overs of left-arm spin but he’s just there to give a break to the fast bowlers and nothing more.
This series has all the making of a “batathon”. India’s golden boys in batting could either enhance or mar their reputations, while Australia could suffer damage to the fear psychosis their bowling attack has inspired for so many years.
Still, the two sides are littered with so many stars that cricket will be anything but boring over the next two months.
A few gladiators are in the home stretch of their run and it would make perfect sense to show up at Melbourne or Sydney, or indeed in front of your television sets, to pay homage to these peerless legends.
