Australian cricket team has hired Baroda cricketer Mahesh Pithiya as a net bowler ahead of the Border Gavaskar Trophy scheduled to kickstart on February 9.
A total of 4 Tests and 3 ODIs will be played during the Australia tour of India 2023 between February 9 to March 22. Both teams sweat out on the pitch to get their best out to win the 4 match Test series.
Australia Hired Mahesh Pithiya As Net Bowler
During Australia’s training session, everyone went surprised to see R Ashwin’s look-alike bowling-style player in the Aussies’ net. Later it is revealed that Australia has hired Mahesh Pithiya who has the exact bowling style of R Ashwin.
Notably, Ashwin became Pithiya’s idol the first time he saw him play for India against West Indies in 2013. Pithiya went on to make his first-class debut in December for Baroda and has drawn a lot of parallels with his cricketing hero.
With spin-friendly conditions in India, Ashwin will prove to be the biggest threat to Australia in the upcoming Test series. Due to this, the Australian support staff got in touch with Pithiya and got him to the KSCA Ground in Alur to train with the Australian batters.
Three pitches on the KSCA Ground have been prepared specially by the Karnataka Cricket Association to aid the spinners, with each pitch taking more turns as the day progresses.
It is worth mentioning that Ashwin has won 7 players of the series awards from 20 series in Tests which are played in India.
How are the Aussies preparing for @ashwinravi99 ahead of their upcoming Test series with India? Well, they’ve only gone and flown in a near carbon copy of the star off-spinner as a net bowler | #INDvAUS pic.twitter.com/l9IPv6i43j
— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) February 3, 2023
The first match of the tournament will be played between February 9 to 13 at Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium, Nagpur.
CHECK: India vs Australia 2023 Live Streaming Details For All Locations
Australia Squad
Pat Cummins (c), Ashton Agar, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Lance Morris, Todd Murphy, Matthew Renshaw, Steve Smith (vc), Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson, David Warner
India squad for the first two Tests
Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul (vc), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KS Bharat, Ishan Kishan, Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat, Suryakumar Yadav.
