‘Shadi ki footage study karke kaise pata’ – Fans react as reports of Australian team studying Axar Patel’s footage emerge

India crushed New Zealand in the final T20I on February 1, Wednesday and it was the Hardik Pandya-led Indian team who won the game by 168 runs after putting on 234 runs on the board at the end of the first innings. With just a week left for the Tests vs Australia, the Rohit Sharma-led team are toiling hard in the nets for the highly-challenging contests. 

On Thursday, reports emerged from Sunday Morning Herald claiming that the Australian team are studying Axar Patel’s footage and consider him to be a ‘high threat’. With Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja making a return for the series, Patel might come out of the box and trouble the Baggy Greens batters, which might have forced the Australians to study him with footage. 

The Pat Cummins-led brigade are camping at Alur cricket stadium, Bengaluru to prepare for spinning tracks and are leaving no stone unturned to give their ‘A’ game for the competitive series. Given that it was India who won the previous two times, it remains to be seen if Rohit and his men would be able to defeat the Australian team for the third consecutive time. 

Australia avoid practice match ahead of competitive series

That being said, the Baggy Greens avoided playing a practice match citing pitch issues and a lack of quality surfaces to play on. Steve Smith, the star Australian batter, claimed that they were not provided with proper surfaces last time around and they have decided to opt out of the practice match, which led to the camp at Bengaluru. 

“We’ve gathered our spinners in Sydney for strategic talks as we no longer trust that the requested facilities will be provided for a nation. We’ve been part of this shenanigan too by the way, when we’re over in England we spend our time whinging about weakened County teams that England put up as our opposition before the series,” former Australian wicketkeeper Ian Healy was quoted as saying to SEN Radio.

“Our focus in cricket has shifted from creating opportunities and experiences for our best up-and-coming cricketers and now we deny touring teams quality preparation before very highly anticipated series and I don’t like it. It’s disappointing to watch the dismantling of trust between cricket’s nations and it needs to stop,” he added. 

Here’s how fans have reacted to reports about the Australian team studying Axar Patel’s footage ahead of the Border-Gavaskar trophy: