Big Four thrown into deep end for India Test series

The “big four” of Australian cricket could go into next month’s series against India without having sighted a red ball for almost a year.

Steve Smith will go into the first Test without having faced a red ball for almost a year

The “Big Four” of Australian Test cricket are likely to go into next month’s blockbuster series against India without having sighted a pink or red ball for almost 12 months.

Pat Cummins, Steve Smith, David Warner and Josh Hazlewood will return from the IPL chock-full of T20 cricket but with no long-form match play since the Sydney Test in early January.

In the tightly-compacted schedule there will be just one opportunity for the superstar quartet to have a last-minute tune-up on December 11, when Australia A plays a three-day pink-ball tour match against the Indians under lights at the SCG.

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However, it’s understood selectors will lean towards not playing Cummins, Smith, Warner and Hazlewood for Australia A because giving them a mental and physical freshen-up after months overseas in a bubble will be of greater importance.

Virat Kohli and India’s IPL stars are every chance to play in that match in what could be an unusually high-profile tour game even without the likes of Smith and Warner, with Fox Cricket to send their own commentary team to broadcast it live.

“We’ll wait for Cricket Australia to announce the schedule, but if quality cricket like that is available, Fox Cricket will certainly be looking to show it,” said Fox Cricket chief Matt Weiss. “We’ll be hoping some of the biggest superstars in the game will warm up for the day-night Test.”

The Indians – who named their squads on Tuesday – will have the same concerns about freshening up their stars after the IPL, but are more likely to field a Test-like team at the SCG given they purposefully requested a pink-ball warm-up game to prepare for their first-ever day-night Test on Australian soil.

India has already lost stars Ishant Sharma and Rohit Sharma to IPL injuries and ensuring players don’t burn out is seen as a huge priority leading into the first pink-ball Test, which kicks off on December 17 in Adelaide.

The Big Four – plus India’s IPL stars – will only just have emerged from their two weeks of quarantine in Sydney from November 11 before launching straight into a white-ball international series against India spanning from November 27-December 8; playing two one-dayers and two T20s in Sydney and one of each in Canberra in the middle.

In another quirk of the Covid schedule, there will be two tour matches played between Australian and Indian teams before the Test series – the first at Sydney’sDrummoyne Oval in the middle of the limited overs series – meaning both heavyweights will have seen plenty of each other before ball one in Adelaide.

Mitchell Starc will return for NSW on Friday, with Tim Paine, Matt Wade, Travis Head, Nathan Lyon, Marnus Labuschagne and Joe Burns also turning out in the Sheffield Shield.

Selectors will look to play some of these red-ball stars combined with bolters such as gun all-rounder Cameron Green in the first tour match between Australia A and India’s red-ball only players at Drummoyne.

It’s unknown whether the Australia A side for the second and final tour game at the SCG will feature any Test players, but the option is there for selectors if they do change their minds on Smith or Warner, or need to get another hit into someone.

Even for players of the class of Smith, Warner, Cummins and Hazlewood, not having a proper red or pink-ball warm-up is far from ideal, particularly going into battle against Kohli and the world’s best.

In Smith and Warner’s case, their nearly 12 months without a red-ball match comes only two summers after they also served a year-long ban from all formats for ball-tampering.

The SCG may throw the gates open to Sydney’s large Indian fan base for the tour game, and Fox Sports believe the prospect of Kohli playing a prime time pink ball game is worth making a big deal of to launch what shapes as a bumper Test series. The series looks increasingly likely to include a Boxing Day Test in COVID-free Melbourne.