Australia’s Matthew Wade expects the Indian fast bowlers to pepper him with short-pitched deliveries in the upcoming summer. However, Wade feels the Jasprit Bumrah-led attack won’t be able to replicate bumper-machine Neil Wagner.
Wade's battle with Wagner in Perth was the most riveting contest of the last summer. The southpaw was found wanting against the Kiwi speedster’s hostile short-pitch bowling and coped a number of blows to his body.
While New Zealand suffered a 3-0 whitewash in that Test series, Wagner finished with 17 wickets at an average of 22.76. He also proved to be the nemesis for Australia's three leading batsmen, Steve Smith, David Warner and Marnus Labuschagne, dismissing them a combined of 10 times in that series.
Wade, who is likely to bat in the middle-order against India, reckons executing Wagner's method will be harder than it looks.
"Teams may try it but I don't think it will be as successful," Wade told cricket.com.au.
"I don't think anyone in the game has bowled bouncers the way he bowled and been so consistent, and not gotten scored off while also picking up wickets.
"I think we'll see it a bit (from India) but I don't think it will be as effective as Wagner. He's done it for a long time now … to be honest I've never faced a bowler who is so accurate at bowling bouncers."
In the last tour down under two seasons ago, the pace trio of Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammad Shami and Ishant Sharma took 48 wickets between them as India defeated Australia in Adelaide and Melbourne to clinch the series 2-1.
Even though Australia's top-order is far more settled than it was in 2018-19, Wade expects Virat Kohli's side to be the toughest challenge this current outfit has had to contend with.
"Everyone, although they might not admit it, is looking towards that Indian series. It's going to be hard work. They (India) are a fierce team. They're as hard a team as I've ever played in terms of the way they compete,” the 32-year-old remarked.
"Led by Virat, you can see the way he goes about it on the field, you can see what it means to him and he drives all those guys, they jump on the back of him. It's going to be as big a challenge as this team has faced for the 12 months we've been together," he concluded.
(Inputs from cricket.com.au)
