India will tour Down Under for five Test matches later this year.
The anticipation around the upcoming Border-Gavaskar Trophy is palpable. India are Australia are slated to square off in a five-match Test series for the first time in over three decades.
Star batter Virat Kohli will hold a key for India in the marquee series. Kohli loves the rivalry against Australia and has played some of his best Test knocks Down Under.
In 25 Tests and 44 innings against Australia, Virat has aggregated 2042 runs at an average of 47.48 with eight hundreds and five half-centuries.
This could well be Kohli’s last tour of Australia as he is about to turn 36 in November. But irrespective of whether this is his swansong, former Australian cricketer Geoff Lawson expects the local crowd to give tough time to the Indian legend in the forthcoming tour.
Over the years, Virat Kohli’s hot-and-cold relationship with the Australian crowd has only added excitement to the rivalry between two teams.
"Virat Kohli will play the faux villain to Jasprit Bumrah's likeable nature. Bumrah has the fast bowlers privilege of [spending] half a life at fine leg which gives him the ideal chance to interact with the crowd, winning smiles and hearts while Kohli will lurk in the infield appealing vociferously, fielding magnificently and engaging verbally with any Australian player so inclined to conversation, and there will be one or two of those," Lawson told Mid-day.
"Aussie crowds love a competitor like Kohli, they may give him some grief if he plays the antagonist but you can guarantee that if he makes 50s and 100s he will be loudly applauded by the fans. He has shown a liking for Australian conditions ever since his first tour 13 years ago. Bounce and pace suited his two-footed game but the question in 2024 is whether he still has the razor sharpness to best Australia’s attack on their home surfaces. I wouldn't count him out," he added.
India have won the last two Test series on Australian soil, while they have held onto the coveted Border-Gavaskar Trophy since March 2017.
Lawson, who represented Australia in 46 Tests and 79 ODIs, believes Pat Cummins and his men would be keen to turn things around in the upcoming home series against India.
"Pat Cummins may smile a lot but his competitiveness is ingrained and powerful. Having hinted at a never faltering mindset, some Australian players have been quoted as having unfinished business. The Border-Gavaskar Trophy has been loaned to the BCCI for a decade, it's time to get it back on the trophy shelves in Jolimont [Cricket Australia's headquarters in Victoria]. Australia may hold the World Test Championship but without a home series win against India, the crown sits unsteadily," he remarked.
The highly-anticipated series is slated to get underway on November 22 in Perth and the action will then shift to Adelaide, where both teams will face each other in a Day-Night Test. The last three Tests are set to take place in Brisbane, Melbourne, and Sydney.