Australia vs India 2018: Why the T20I series won't be an easy affair for India

Australia may be far from their best cricket in the recent matches in all formats of the game. They lost the Test and T20 series against Pakistan in UAE. The home summer season didn't start well for them losing the ODI series and one-off T20 against South Africa in November 2018.

On the other hand, India won the Asia cup in UAE and series win against West Indies at home including a T20 series whitewash. The management rested Kohli and a couple of premier bowlers for the series to manage the workload. There will be a forced change in the batting line-up for India with Kohli coming back to the side who played his last T20 match against England on 8 July 2018.

India's batting will once again depend on Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. Shikhar Dhawan has been inconsistent at the top, and a rarely tested middle order will be India's concerns ahead of the game. Rishabh Pant had an excellent start to his Test career, however, hasn't had any long innings in the T20 international format so far.

If the Australian bowlers like Jason Behrendorff, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Billy Stanlake, and Andrew Tye manage to get early wickets of India's top-order, it will become difficult for India to make a comeback considering the kind of struggle of the middle order had in the past.

India's bowling department has no concerns, but, India holds a risk of having a weak lower order batting if they go with two spinners Chahal and Kuldeep along three pace bowlers. No one except Bhuvneshwar Kumar is handy with the bat which will add extra pressure on batsmen to avoid any early collapse. It will be interesting to see if they go for the allrounder Krunal Pandya instead of a spinner to bring in the balance.

For Australia results haven't gone their way in the past few months and batsmen struggled to score runs, but, the team has strong profiles for the T20 format. Finch, Lynn, Short makes a formidable top three on their day. Ben McDermott, Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, and Alex Carey at middle order is an advantage for them. Nathan Coulter-Nile and Ashton Agar are more than handy batsmen who can add quick runs at the lower order.

However, it's their current form and the rebuilding process which is holding them back at the moment and Finch will hope a for fresh start against Indians in Australian Summer. Their only T20 game at home came against South Africa, but, the rain impacted ten over game gave them no chance for the ideal preparation for the series against India.

The contest will be once again between India's top order batsmen and Australia's bowlers. Australia will look forward to making the best use home advantage and start with a win to gain the early momentum in the series. India will have a tough job ahead across formats if Australian batsmen find the rhythm in the tour which starts with the T20 series.