One of Test cricket’s premier series begins this week as Australia and India begin a hotly anticipated Border-Gavaskar Trophy, starting in Perth on Friday. From looking at Australia as the model to follow Indian cricket has become an unstoppable force unlike pretty much anything we see across sport.
But the juggernaut is reeling. They come into this series off a historic 3-0 loss to New Zealand and will be without captain Rohit Sharma, No. 3 Shubman Gill and master seamer Mohammed Shami for the first Test. Can they overcome these absences and their own horrible form?
While there are any number of combinations India can pick Australia are far more settled but that doesn’t mean they don’t have problems of their own. The primary issue is at the top of the order where they are planning to partner the established Usman Khawaja with Nathan McSweeney, who only opened for the first time in a first-class game earlier this month (scoring 39 across two innings).
It promises to be five Tests of can’t miss cricket, here’s what our stump-waver extraordinaire Peter Sharland is tipping for the first Test.
Australia v India First Test tips
#WhatOddsPaddy: Bumrah and Ashwin to both take 2+ wickets in first innings
Steve Smith to be Australia’s clear top scorer in first innings
#WhatOddsPaddy: Starc, Cummins and Hazlewood to each take 3+ wickets in the first innings
WHEN: Friday, 22nd November, 2:20am
WHERE: Optus Stadium, Perth
TV: TNT Sports 1
Jasprit Bumrah and Ravichandran Ashwin to both take 2+ wickets in first innings
You remember the bit when we said India have a lot of questions? Well, Bumrah is the clear leader of the attack but who are the other two pacers? With no Hardik Pandya, Nitish Kumar Reddy will come in as a seam-bowling all-rounder but Harshit Rana is putting real pressure on both Mohammed Siraj and Akash Deep by all accounts.
With that in mind we’re going to back Bumrah and Ashwin to be safe. Ashwin over Ravi Jadeja simply because of the number of left-handers Australia have in their top order (3 – Usman Khawaja, Travis Head and Alex Carey) and given Reddy likely won’t be the wicket-taking threat that Hardik historically has been.
Steve Smith to be Australia’s clear top scorer in first innings
Our second best comes courtesy of Paddy Power’s Power Price which has boosted this bet from 16/5 to 7/2 and we can’t look away from it because Steve Smith simply loves playing against India.
Smith averages 65.87 against India, more than every other side he has played against except for the West Indies where a couple of big not outs have taken his average to well over 100. And speaking of 100s nine of Smith’s 32 have come against India, more than any other side except for England and that is in part because he has played nearly twice as many games against them compared to India. So yeah, Smith loves playing against India.
Yes, Smith’s average is hovering around 30 for 2024 in Test cricket but with the opener experiment seemingly over, at least for the first Test, you can expect a rapid return to form in the middle order.
Mitch Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood to each take 3+ wickets in the first innings
This last one is a long shot but some of the early reports we’re getting out of Perth are suggesting that it will be a green top that could absolutely favour the seamers. If you think back to the first Test against New Zealand 17 of the 20 Indian wickets to fall went to seamers. On a pitch that gave the pacers something India’s batters just had no answer at all.
Now if you were Australia and you had one of the great modern pace attacks and you were facing up against a team missing two of their top batters and their second-best pacer would you not maybe prepare a wicket that favoured seamers? We definitely would and if that is what Australia choose to do why wouldn’t you bet on a repeat of what happened at the Chinnaswamy?
*All prices are bang up to date with our snazzy widgets, while odds in copy are accurate at time of publishing but subject to change.
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