Indians fly off Down Under with soaring hopes in tow

The big tour is on. Fresh from their thumping victory over Pakistan at home...

The big tour is on. Fresh from their thumping victory over Pakistan at home, and ‘armed’, so to say, with five pacers, two of them tall, fresh-faced youngsters, Team India boarded the flight to Singapore, en route to Melbourne.

New skipper Anil Kumble leads India’s hopes of a special tour, trying to do one better than thelast time then the series was almost won, but ended in a 1-1 draw. However, in the back of their minds also stays the tour before that in which India fared pretty poorly. Playing also at the back of the skipper’s mind will be the fact that tearaway pacer Brett Lee will be back to deliver the thunderbolts at over 90 miles per hour. The last time India were there, Lee was not among the tormentors.

Hence Kumble’s comment that this tour will be a “tough challenge”, trying to beard the lions of Ricky Ponting & Co in their own backyard. However, he remains optimistic and says: “We have the potential and players to win this series.”

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“We had a very good series against Pakistan. We won the one-day as well as the Test series which is a confidence booster for doing well in Australia,” proclaimed Kumble. He will be back home after the Test series, leaving the squad in the hands of one-day captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

Kumble’s hopes also rise from the fact that the experienced players in the squad —the likes of Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, himself and VVS Laxman, as also Harbhajan Singh— have enough knowledge of Australian conditions. Though the Melbourne Cricket Ground pitch happens to be a new one—a drop-in pitch necessitated after the MCG was turned into football ground—there will be enough opportunities to make a case in each Test.

That makes Kumble say: “The potential in the side and the players’ experience will help. We have people in the middle order with over 30,000 runs and I think we will be able to handle whatever comes our way.”

He also bases his optimism in the fact that for many of the seniors this is likely to be their last tour Down Under, and they would all want to leave on a high. Tendulkar has been in fine form, so has Ganguly. Kumble has returned with great figures, and Laxman has shown much of that old glitter. Harbhajan has also been among the wickets. Rahul Dravid has been a bit shaky lately, but his experience and talent is for all to see.

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Among the others, it will be Wasim Jaffer who will be again called into play in the opening challenge. The opening pair, though a trifle uncertain—depends whether the team think-tank will be willing to go ahead with Virender Sehwag in the first Test itself—but the confidence of a solid middle-order will be a good thought for Kumble to keep while going out for the toss.

The fact that India have beaten all countries on their own soil, except Australia, is one record that Kumble will want to make during his tenure at the top.

Two small worrying factors will be the fact that many of the players will be travelling to a full summer from wintry Indian conditions, and that there is this one warm-up game to adjust in, versus Victoria XI at Melbourne’s Junction Oval before the Boxing Day Test. But Kumble has pooh-poohed this, saying: “We have played lot of cricket and have 10 days before the first Test to get adjusted.”