‘We’re probably the most well-rounded squad to tour India’: Nathan Lyon

Experience and learning from past makes of previous tours, a more chilled vibe, calmer captain and a well-rounded, flexible squad could be the difference from all earlier times when Australians toured India.
“We’re probably the most well-rounded squad to tour India,” Lyon was quoted as saying cricket.com.au, on the eve of the first Test at Nagpur. “I’m probably more confident now than what I was in the past. We’ve played a lot of cricket together … we’re a really well-balanced team and we know what we want to set out to achieve,” he added of his third Test tour. “He reckons it is their best chance of claiming the Border-Gavaskar Trophy abroad, something they have done just once in 54 years,” cricket.com.au wrote.
Familiarizing themselves with the “rhythm of the subcontinent” happened at low-key Alur where a smattering of Hindi was heard. “In some ways it’s been a low-key preparation,” Cummins told cricket.com.au. “It means we’ve hit plenty of balls, we’ve done all the work, so once the game starts we’re ready. But we also haven’t spent all our energy before that.”
So, Usman Khawaja told a local net bowler in Hindi, with a Queensland twang, to bowl four straight balls to him (“Aur char ball seedha aap hi daalna”) and that he is bowling well (“Bahut achhe daal Rahe ho”, as per cricket.com.au. Khawaja would brush off a visa delay to a “country he has been to 11 times without playing a Test.”
Steve Smith was heard encouraging a net bowler with a “shabaash” and David Warner turned down an extra round of throwdowns with “nahi, nahi”, according to the website.
“We’re definitely more learned,” Khawaja was quoted as saying cricket.com.au. “We’ve made so many makes in the past and at some level you learn from them. It doesn’t guarantee success but there’s definitely a different way of thinking. I remember we went to Sri Lanka a while back (in 2016), we struggled there. And even going back on that (last) Indian tour (in 2017), our game plan kind of changed from game to game.
“We’re a more mature side and realise that sometimes you can do all the right things but lose the game. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do the same thing again the next game. Our batters are more mature, our bowlers are more mature, I think our coaching staff is pretty mature too. I think that helps.”
Big score needs to be really big
Steve Smith was captain in 2017 and his takeaway from previous losses stems from ruefully recalling how his side failed to capitalise on winning the first Test in Pune. What haunts him as per the website was Ranchi, “where the Aussies posted a seemingly strong total of 451 in the first innings. India declared on 9-601 and the tours were forced to hold on grimly to avoid an innings defeat. It was a similar story for the second Test against Sri Lanka in Galle last year when Australia’s first-innings 364 left them nearly 200 runs in deficit after the hosts then showed how true the pitch still was. If presented with another typical subcontinental track that initially favours batters and then takes turn later in the Test, Smith knows their sights need to be set higher.”
“If the wickets are good, I think it’s important to make really big scores,” he was quoted as saying. “I always think back to our Test match at Ranchi, we got 450 in the first innings and it wasn’t nearly enough. If the wickets are good, we’re going to have to make 550-plus to get ourselves in the game.”
Cummins on his third tour to Asia as captain, has learnt it’s more complicated than rotating quicks. “Here sometimes you’ve got to wait for the conditions to come to you. If it’s flat on the first two days, but you know the back-end of the game it may break up, it’s as much about holding on, trying to keep control of the game those first few days. So it’s slightly different fields, putting some deeper men back.
“On the flipside, the game can happen really quickly. Batting, you’ve got to have a plan from ball one. And in the field, it’s about trying to stay in that zone when it is happening really fast, and create different options.
It’s fun. It’s different a lot of the time to what you get used to growing up playing in Australia.”
“Confidence in own identity”
According to cricket.Com.au, Australia’s greatest asset might just be the confidence they have in their own identity. “There was some merit in then-coach Justin Langer’s lament during the 2018-19 summer that “we’d be (seen as) the worst blokes in the world” if his side had mimicked Virat Kohli’s on-field antagonism. While this current iteration of the Australian team is less concerned with that side of the game than previous ones, they are perhaps more comfortable in pushing back than when they walked the post-Sandpaper gate tightrope.”
“I’m sure there’s going to be little heated moments on the field,” Cummins was quoted as saying. “It’s two passionate teams playing against each other. But I hope, like we’ve shown over the last little bit, that we can manage our way through that.
“If there is a bit of spice and someone’s getting themselves pumped up, maybe that’s for that purpose, to get themselves into the contest at that moment.
“We’re really big on just concentrating on our own approach to the game. “