In Test match terms this is as big as it gets. Australia face India in four Test matches in as many cities on four corners of the subcontinent, with its enormous population and thriving economy. The series will be watched by thousands at the grounds and millions around the world.
For all that tremendous scale, chances are that the Border-Gavaskar series will be decided on a remarkably small patch of turf: the most hotly contested territory on the pitch where spinners on each side will try to land the ball, as batters fight to keep them away from it.
Australia took advantage of a bad wicket in Pune to win in 2017.Credit:AP
It’s in these terms that the forthcoming Test match duel is seen by Sridharan Sriram, warmly known as “Sri” over five years as a valued assistant coach for Australia.
The team’s only victory in a Test in India in the past 19 years, a 331-run rout of India on a dustbowl pitch in Pune in 2017, would not have happened without Sriram’s coaching and cajoling of left-arm spinner Steve O’Keefe.
Sriram spoke to The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald from Dubai this week, where he is working on the UAE Twenty20 league, and recalled the lunchtime bowling session that preceded the first of O’Keefe’s dramatic 12 wickets in that Test.
“SOK didn’t start that spell off very well,” he said. “He was going at around four runs an over and he came into lunch and he said ‘Sri I want to have a bowl with you in the middle’. It was lunchtime and he was all over the shop. I didn’t know how much to say, how much not to say.
“So I went out, had two stumps and we were bowling. He started the conversation, and we just fixed on a particular seam position and wanted to keep at this for an hour or two without trying to do anything different. Try and bowl quicker and not try to really spin the ball, but bowl quicker into the wicket and keep that seam angle a little flatter than normal.
“So he did that, then went out and got six-for in each innings. That little lunch break where we had this 10-minute chat and bowling in the middle, that doesn’t usually happen. But it was one of those moments that just clicked.“
What O’Keefe and Sriram focused upon was finding the right seam position to hit the right length at the right pace, quick enough to stop opponents from hanging safely on the back foot, but with enough zip to ensure even a forward prod carried risk.
“If you can bowl the same length but slightly slower it gives the batsman the time to adjust off the back foot, whereas with that slightly flatter seam position, some sort of skid on and some just hold their line and that’s what creates the doubt and doesn’t give you time,” Sriram said.
“Not giving time to play off the pitch is very important in India. You still bowl the right length, but if the batter gets time to play off the pitch, then he adjusts. Once you’re beaten in the air, you must be beaten all over. You can’t get beaten in the air and then adjust off the pitch.“
Sridharan Sriram during his time with Australia.Credit:Andrew Wu
In the modern era, and certainly during the 2017 Test series, the Australian spinners had assistance from ball-tracking technology to know whether they were hitting the “vulnerable zone”, neither too full nor too short, at the ideal speed.
“The contact points are very important,” Sriram said. “You try and make contact either ahead of 2.5 metres, or below 1.5 metres. That 1.5 to 2.5 metres area is the vulnerable zone. The more you make the batter contact the ball in that zone as a spinner, I think you’re winning the battle.
“But as a batter if you’re impacting it in front of 2.5m or behind 1.5m, then you’re generally doing well. That’s something we did look at during that time, because with HawkEye technology you could still do that measure of where batsmen were contacting the ball.
“One of the underrated concepts is speed off the pitch. We talk about speed in the air as a spinner, but to me the speed off the pitch is very important. It’s something that’s not really measured yet in cricket. But the zip off the pitch, I think makes the spinner a more potent force.“
That sort of advice was valued within the Australian dressing room under three coaches in Darren Lehmann, Justin Langer and Andrew McDonald.
”The amount of trust they showed in me was phenomenal,” Sriram said. “The way I see things is different from the way an Aussie saw it, so I think that was very unique. Sometimes what I see, they would not even have thought about it, to look at it that way. That took time to build trust, but great relationships grew with Usman, Marnus, Smudge, Warner, I could go on. I’m incredibly grateful for CA putting me on the map.“
If Sridharan and the Australians have any regrets about 2017, it comes from failure to seal a 2-0 series lead in the second match in Bengaluru. Noting how the current team are emphasising freshness across the whole series, Sriram said that strong physical and mental preparation for the inevitable challenges of pitches, heat and opposition was essential – particularly for the spin bowlers.
“You think you’re very well-prepared, but what if that method doesn’t work?” he asked. “For example I come in with an attacking mindset, I want to attack spin, but what if you play an attacking shot and get out, do you still convince yourself this method will work throughout the series, or two, three innings later if you change, that’s where batsmen have had their downfall and the series just goes plummeting down.
“It goes very quickly because you don’t have time between Tests and innings. You’ve got too much to think about, the wickets are already playing on your mind, then it becomes the heat, then it becomes the food, then it becomes everything else. That’s where the mental battle lies, and that’s where foreign teams have found it really challenging.“
Sriram enjoyed a close relationship with the left-arm spin bowler Ashton Agar, who looms as a vital offsider for Lyon on this tour. Together they worked on Agar’s strong displays in Bangladesh in 2017, and Sriram said that the languid 29-year-old’s biggest challenge will be to hold the shape of his action on long days.
“Ash is fantastic, he loves bowling in these conditions and feels his skill set suits these conditions the best,” Sriram said. “I think the challenge for him always lies in holding his action together through a long period of time. It’s very different in white ball cricket when you’ve got to bowl only 10 overs at the most or four overs, he’s good enough to hold his action.
“But in a 20 or 25 overs day, is he able to hold his action for a long period of time. That will be the challenge he will face, to be able to replicate the same ball, ball after ball for 25 overs. He’s someone who can lose his action even in the day between spells.
“If something slightly off went in his action, I was very quick to go to him and say ‘Ash, this is what I’m seeing’, and he had that trust in me that he could fix it very quickly. But that’s something I’m sure he’s developed over time, the awareness he’s got in his own action. I think he’s good enough now to go back to his cues whenever he feels it’s just going away from him.“
Where Sriram is confident that Lyon, “one of the world’s great bowlers” will play a standout role for Australia, he warned that Mitch Swepson and Todd Murphy would come under concerted pressure from Indian batters who sweated on anything remotely loose in order to hit visiting spinners off their lengths.
As a bowler captain, Pat Cummins has brought the best out of the Australian attack.Credit:AP
In batting terms, he believes Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne as Australia’s key figures, because they possess techniques and minds that are nimble enough to make adjustments within matches and innings – Sriram recalled how Smith added the ability to hit into the spin of Rangana Herath in Sri Lanka in 2016 and immediately peeled off a century in Colombo.
But the biggest difference Sriram sees in an Australian side that he has predicted can go one better than the narrow defeat in India in 2017 is from a leadership perspective. With a bowling captain in Pat Cummins, there is greater empathy and tactical dexterity than ever before.
“For me the bowler captain has made the difference,” Sriram said. “Pat Cummins understands the mentality, the hardships and what exactly a bowler goes through, and that’s made a huge difference to the way we’ve played.
“He will be phenomenal for the spinners. He uses Nathan Lyon so well, in long spells, bring him on early in the second innings, takes him off at the right times, the fields he has and getting Nathan to buy into those fields, that’s not an easy thing to do.”
Victory then, is within reach. But not without taking command of that one metre square.
News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.
