Australia are fortunate that skipper Michael Clarke comes across as more pragmatic than some of his more emotional team-mates and former captains who believe that references to the early Australian summer will lend them the edge against India in the ICC Cricket World Cup semifinal at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Thursday.
"They've spent so much time here and worked out conditions. I think MS Dhoni deserves a lot of
credit the way he's been able to turn things around as the leader, as the captain. They're playing some really good cricket, there's no doubt about it. We look forward to that challenge. Thursday becomes our World Cup final. We look forward to it," he said, indicating respect.
"I think India are going to be extremely tough team to beat obviously because they're a very good team and they've spent so much time in Australia and know the conditions quite well. The game is going to certainly be a challenge and we're definitely going to have to be at our best to beat them. We'll need every weapon we've got against India on Thursday," he said.
At his Sydney home over the weekend, Clarke would have chuckled that former captain Steve Waugh and allrounder Glenn Maxwell sought to draw attention to Australia's victories over India in the Tests and an ODI in the Carlton Mid tri-series as a weapon. They believe that India will find it tough to erase memories of the Test losses and the four-wicket defeat in Melbourne.
Clarke knows better than to ignore India's hunger or balance. For all the noise being made about India losing in Tests or the one ODI to Australia this summer, he is aware that the home side will make a big mistake if they walk on to the park believing that this Indian team is the same they played back then. He expects it to be a cracker of a game.
In the first place, they will have to concede that India were more competitive in the Tests than cold scorelines and the 2-0 verdict would show. And that Australia did not win the Carlton Mid tri-series game at MCG on a canter despite Mitchell Starc's six-wicket haul and a breezy knock at the top by Aaron Finch.
In what has been a fast bowlers' World Cup, the Indian trio of Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav and Mohit Sharma have accounted for 42 wickets, three more than the Australian quartet of Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Johnson, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins. What's more, spinners R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja have claimed 21 scalps.
Indeed, on a track where bowlers have to employ change of pace, India have the bowlers to surprise Australian batsmen with their own range of weapons on any kind of track that SCG curator Paul Parker and his team may be inspired to lay out for what can turn out to be the final before the final.
It will not be unfair to cast the mind back to the eve of Australia's World Cup league match against Sri Lanka when Clarke said he had not seen a drier SCG pitch. He also said that with a day of sun and some rolling, the pitch could harden. And the ground staff obliged him with some watering and rolling. So India can expect a bit more grass.
Surely, the pitch will not be as slow as the tracks on which the earlier games were played but it is not likely to offer the bounce that Australians and Pakistan's Wahab Riaz extracted at the Adelaide Oval on Friday. India have the batsmen to either set the game up for them or win it on the SCG track that is probably the closest to a sub-continental pitch in Australia.
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