Legendary Sachin Tendulkar feels that Virat Kohli's men have a "golden opportunity" to clinch India's maiden Test series triumph in Australia.
With the rise in India's fast bowling stocks and the hosts missing two of their best batsmen in Steve Smith and David Warner, there have been genuine claims of this being the Indian team's best opportunity to come out victorious down under for the very first time in their history.
But the great man has put on onus on the visiting batsmen to ensure that the team steps forward towards what could be an astonishing feat.
"The batters have to score 350-plus runs and that’s when the bowlers are able to put pressure. But it works both ways, if we were to bowl first, then it is equally important for our bowlers to not allow the opposition to go beyond 300 to 325," Tendulkar told The Hindu in an interview recently, "Otherwise, our batters come under pressure. With 220 or 240 it’s difficult because the captain is forced to open out his field much sooner, but if you have runs on the board, you can prolong that."
"The Australian team is not settled. It doesn’t require me to say that, everyone says so. Its batting relied heavily on David Warner and Steve Smith and so that is fragile right now."
"Its bowling attack is decent, but it will have to think on how to dismiss a strong Indian batting line-up to stay in the game. India has a golden opportunity (to win a Test series in Australia)," he reaffirmed.
The "Master Blaster" also gave an insight on how being best prepared for each challenge across four-Tests and fielding the ripe XI on the park will be extremely important, and said, "I am not involved in the processes of planning strategy and it wouldn’t be right to sit out and comment on it. There are a number of things which happen in the dressing room and I leave it to the management to decide who will play and how long will he play because they understand it better as they are practising with them and are aware of the mental condition, the physical state and also the pitch conditions. They have all the knowledge to make an informed decision."
The 45-year-old also stressed how it's a wonderful chance for Rohit Sharma to finally find his feet at the Test level.
He said, "Rohit has played well and I thought even in South Africa in the second Test match, the partnership in the fourth innings was rather good. He had played out that session (morning session of the fifth day) really well. He had left the ball and right ahead of lunch we had lost a wicket."
"But had that continued till tea, it would have been different. It’s just around the corner and he needs to continue pressing the accelerator as hard as possible," he signed off.
