Australia will play a “new-age type of Test cricket” in a bid to expose the old legs of an Indian side viewing the Border-Gavaskar series as a final tilt at glory.
Australian captain Ricky Ponting said that his men wanted to show retiring former skipper Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman, Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar in an unkind light.
“I really think we can take them on in the field, almost a new-age type of Test cricket that can make a few of their guys look a bit old and a bit slow,” Ponting said.
“Spoken to guys in team meeting yesterday, our running between wickets and our fielding on some of their batsmen when they’re in together – a Ganguly or a Laxman being in together – I really think we can create pressure on them with our intensity in the field at different times, and make them look past their use-by date.
“That’s what we’re trying to achieve, put their older guys under immense pressure.
“We know if we do that, and make little things stand out, their whole media over here will just jump on them, especially if they lose an early game.”
Indian coach Gary Kirsten, a renowned grinder when he opened the batting for South Africa, said his players were very aware of what the Australians would attempt.
“Yeah we have identified that as something that they might look to do and we’re very aware of what their plans are and we’ve prepared accordingly,” he said.
“We’ve got a group of very talented batsmen in this team and really what we’re looking for is a few of them to get into some good form early in the series and run with that.”
Ganguly’s retirement announcement arrived on Tuesday as an afterthought at the end of his pre-match press conference.
It promises to turn the series into the sort of farewell circus not glimpsed since Steve Waugh confirmed he would quit after one last series against India at home in 2003-04.
Having lived through the distractions of that summer, which helped the Indians on their way to securing a 1-1 drawn series, Ponting could not hide his glee at thinking how that pressure to “win it for Sourav” would now fall squarely on India.
“It (a circus) can happen more so here than in Australia – there’ll be people jumping up and down all over the place to get a crack at Sourav or any of the Indian players at training today … I reckon it’ll be great,” Ponting said.
“By him making that announcement (it) will take a lot of pressure off him, so he’s not playing for the next Test or next series.
“A lot of their senior players will be.
“If you look at Laxman, Sachin and Dravid, they’ll all be so wrapped up to get runs in this series to give them another opportunity.”
