4 Big Questions Facing India Ahead of Australia Limited-Overs Tour

Australia and India will square off in an eight-match limited-overs tour beginning in January next year. With five ODIs and three T20s to look forward to, the tour will, in part, serve as preparation for next year’s World T20.

The last time these two teams met in Australia was during this year’s Cricket World Cup. India had a decent run in that tournament, cruising into the semi-finals before being beaten by hosts Australia.

It’s a great pity there are no Tests on this tour, but the limited overs should nonetheless be pretty entertaining.  

Both teams have squads that are fairly settled but things change quickly in cricket. India will not play any other international cricket before this tour kicks off, so they have just the domestic 50-over competition to go by.

A series win is obviously first prize, but for both teams, that is unlikely to be the most important facet of this tour. There is a World T20 to plan for and, as the saying goes: There is no practice like match practice and eight limited-overs matches will certainly offer some practice.

Since the Cricket World Cup, India’s limited-overs teams haven’t been in great form. They have lost an ODI series in Bangladesh, drew a T20 series in Zimbabwe and lost a T20 and ODI series against South Africa on home soil.

While the talent of their core group of players cannot be doubted, there certainly are a few question marks over some of their players

Here are the four key questions that face India ahead of their tour to Australia. If you can think of any other pressing questions—add yours in the comments.

Can their spinners do it on flatter tracks?

This is sort of becoming the cricket version of football’s poser: “Can team X do it on a cold night in Stoke?” During the recent Test series against South Africa in India, India’s spinners had a field day.

With tracks that suited them perfectly, their spinners ripped through the heart of the South African attacks and made them look like amateurs.

Limited-overs cricket offers a much different challenge, though. Spinners play a crucial role in the shorter formats of the game and are often seen as the bowlers who are there to tighten things up, even on tracks that aren’t as spin friendly.

The question is now whether India’s spinners have been pampered a bit too much with tracks that are so beneficial to them? Ravi Ashwin and Ravi Jadeja are both very good bowlers and they have proven themselves on more than one occasion.

However, the risk with preparing tracks that offer everything to spinners means that they might not necessarily be fine-tuning their skills.

With the World T20 being played in India, perhaps it won’t bother India’s spinners so much, but it will be interesting to see how they respond to wickets where they have to be a bit more clever about getting their wickets.

How much synergy will there be between the ODI and T20 squads?

The tricky part when it comes to preparing for global events is the fine line between testing new players, giving your current players enough practice and resting the players who are important.

Momentum ahead of the tournament does matter and a series victory in tough conditions should always be paramount. However, India will have to guard against overplaying some of their key players and risking an injury to any of their big names.

The squad has not been announced yet, but one has to wonder whether the ODI squad might see a few new faces that are on the fringes of Indian cricket.

This approach will serve a dual purpose. It will give India’s key men a chance to sit back and relax, but it will also allow selectors to look at some fresh new potential and make a call on whether they might be worth bringing along for the World T20 ride.

The frustrating thing for India will be that the conditions they’ll be faced with in Australia will be nowhere close to what awaits them during the World T20. Thus, even if a player does perform well on this tour, there is no guarantee that he will perform on home soil.

Can they improve on their Cricket World Cup exploits?

Suresh Raina, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, MS Dhoni and Ajinkya Rahane were the standout players with the bat. But playing these tough tours away from home is all about improving, and there will no doubt be some question marks over the heads of a few players.

Sharma is one of those. While he was impressive during the World Cup, he hit something of a slump against South Africa in the Test series recently and selectors will have to decide how much time they want to give him to try to regain some of his form.  

He managed a century in both the T20 and the ODI series, though, so just dumping him would be foolish.

Who is going to be the captain?

As far as we know, MS Dhoni is one-day and T20 captain. After recently being beaten by Bangladesh, though, Dhoni did suggest that he might considering stepping down from the ODI captaincy role. That never happened. A series defeat in both T20s and ODIs followed against South Africa and so far, Dhoni has remained mum on his role as captain.

The question is now what will happen in Australia? When India lost to Bangladesh, Dhoni was quoted by Cricket.com.au as saying:

“If you remove me and the Indian cricket will start doing really well, and if I am the reason for all the bad that is happening to Indian cricket, definitely I would love to step away and play as a player. Ultimately you want India to win. It doesn't matter who is the captain.”

Whether he simply said this as a taunt to the media or he really meant it, we don’t know. Chances are, Dhoni will remain as T20 captain until after the World t20 at least. However, that does not mean Indian Cricket won’t be tempted into trying Virat Kohli as captain of the one-day team.

As with Tests, Kohli is the captaincy heir and if Indian cricket wants to box clever, trialling him in a one-day series away from home might not be the worst idea.