We meet India in Canberra, which is not among Australia's best known venues, but it's a good place to play cricket. The pitch that we will play on looks flatter and truer than the one on which we played our warm-up game against the Prime Minister's XI, so hopefully we will witness a high-scoring game. India will certainly be on a high after their win over Australia, and their young players certainly adjusted to the conditions in Melbourne extremely well.
The young bowler Ishant Sharma has particularly impressed me, and I'm not the only one. He is one of the few right-arm fast bowlers currently playing who can bring the ball in and from what I have seen of him during the recent Test series against Australia and now the One-Dayers, he seems to have a very good work ethic and hits the deck hard, which is always a good thing for a quick. For the sake of healthy competition in world cricket, such youngsters are always welcome.
Our youngsters, too, have to work on taking some of the load off the team's senior players. A perception seems to be growing that this team is over-dependent on certain individuals, whereas our focus has always been on a team game. The nature of cricket is such that exceptional individual performances will always come to the fore, but ultimately, the team that plays consistently as a unit wins consistently too.
This is a tough tournament, but it presents all the youngsters with an excellent opportunity to prove their mettle. Like India, Australia too are going through a period of transition of sorts, and this is a good opportunity to prevail over them in their own backyard. Make no mistake, they are still tough opponents, but with their newer plyers settling in, this is a good time to exploit the weaker links.
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