Australia head coach speaks out on India's significant setback before BGT: 'Their strength is undeniable'

India's unbeaten streak at home in Test cricket has come to a surprising end, just days before they head to Australia for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. The team, which had only lost four Test matches at home since 2012 and had never been in danger of losing a Test series on their home turf, has fallen behind 2-0 to New Zealand in their current three-match series.

While India have not lost a Test series to Australia for the past decade, the loss at home to New Zealand puts a serious dent in their confidence ahead of the tour Down Under. In some ways, though, the first blow for them came before the defeat in the second Test in Pune was confirmed with India having to exclude pacer Mohammed Shami from their squad for the tour.

Shami is yet to regain full fitness after an ankle surgery earlier this year. He missed a Ranji Trophy match that he was scheduled to play and that finally led to him being excluded from the squad for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

Australia head coach Andrew McDonald said that he expects the absence of Shami to be a big one for India. "Mohammed Shami is a big loss," said McDonald on ABC's Offsiders. “The way our batters speak about his relentless nature, his line and lengths, the way he goes about his business, a real good complimenting skill set to (Jasprit) Bumrah so think that one-two combo they'll lack a little bit, and they'll miss that.”

Shami, Bumrah and Ishant Sharma formed the pace trio that bludgeoned the Australians into submission during the 2018/19 tour, in which India became the first team to beat them in a Test series Down Under. However, Shami was also ruled out after the first Test of the 2020/21 tour which India lost by 10 wickets after being all-out for 36 runs. He was one of many senior players who got injured over the course of the tour and India still ended up winning the series 2-1.

McDonald said that the memory of the second tour is still fresh in the minds of the Australians and they are aware of the threat even India's reserves carry. “But needless to say we saw what happened last time, they had reserves that came in and did the job as well so they cannot be underestimated at all,” he said.

India's fast bowlers for the tour which starts on November 22 are Bumrah, who is also vice-captain to Rohit Sharma, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana and all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy, with the latter two earning their maiden Test call-up. Additionally, they have three spin allrounders R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar.