4 days Ago By Scott Bailey
Australia's ultimate summer of judgment is looming, with the Border-Gavaskar Trophy to determine where the current Test team sits in the pantheon of greats. Friday's first Test in Perth will kick off one of the most-anticipated Australian summers in 18 years, dating back to when Andrew Flintoff's England arrived for the 2006-07 Ashes. Unofficially, the battle for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy can be billed as a playoff for the title of best team in the world, with Australia and India ranked No.
1 and No.2 respectively. India's most recent back-to-back successes in Australia also add to the intrigue, along with the move to a five-Test series and the number of veterans likely battling it out for the final time.
In reality, this summer also looms as the current Australia team's Everest. Over the past six years, Australia have retained the Ashes in England twice, won a World Test Championship, Twenty20 World Cup and an ODI World Cup. Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon are already among Australia's great bowling quartets, while Steve Smith is one of the nation's finest ever batsmen.
Already the group are considered in the upper tiers of Australia's greatest Test teams, and the best since the golden era side of the early 2000s that conquered India in India. And after all the talk of trying to win an Ashes series in England for the first time since 2001 last year, Australia's current team knows this is another hurdle they must clear. "It's kind of the one big thing that I want to tick off," Australia's captain Cummins said last month.
"Particularly winning at home. Most Australians, me included, expect us to do well whenever we play at home. "We've lost the (last) two series against them (in Australia), so this is a big one.
"We feel like our team's in a really good place, so we've got no reason why we shouldn't perform really well. "I just always expect us to do well against whoever we play. But India, particularly, is a big year, big season.
" Of Australia's 13-man squad for the first Test, only Smith, Hazlewood, Starc and Lyon have played in a series win over India. Smith then missed the 2-1 loss in 2018-19 during the ball-tampering bans, before an India side missing Virat Kohli came back from 1-0 down to beat a full-strength Australia in 2020-21. "It's been 10 years since we beat them in Australia, which is unusual for us.
We don't lose too much in Australia," Smith told AAP. "A lot of India's guys have been together for a long time. "They've got plenty of stocks.
There are 1.6 billion to choose from in a cricket-loving nation. "You can almost choose a second or third XI, and they would compete against most sides.
They've always got plenty of talent and plenty of depth." Smith is one of the men who will enter the series under the spotlight. Australia will have a new opener in Nathan McSweeney, while No.
3 Marnus Labuschagne will be desperate to return to his old ways with the bat. But once the series starts, it's likely most attention will be on Smith after his brief move from No.4 to opener and back again.
The 35-year-old has not scored a century in his past 10 Tests, but has made a career out of standing up for Australia in key matches and major series. His longest rival for the title of world's best bat is in a similar situation, with India's megastar Kohli reaching 100 only twice in his past 60 Test innings. For Smith, the elongated series traditionally spells good news, as he has churned out runs in longer contests at a better average than in those of three or fewer Tests.
That should set up for a summer-long battle with India's attack leader in Jasprit Bumrah and spin duo Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin. "I think it's cool. You can't hide in a five-Test series," Smith said.
"If someone gets the wood over you, you have 10 innings they can keep going at you with the same stuff. "You can't really hide, as opposed to a two or three Test series where it all goes pretty quick. I think it's fitting.
"We've been the two best teams in Test cricket for the past few years. So to be coming up against them in a five-Test series is pretty cool.".
