Former Australia seamer Damien Fleming believes that the Adelaide pitch would deny the home side's pace attack to trouble India's top-order and give the tourists the best chance of grabbing a win in the first Test.
If India has any hope of improving on its disastrous Test series performance in Australia three summers ago, it might come in next week's opening clash in Adelaide, because the Indian team, as seen in England earlier this year and also in Australia last time around, has a habit of going to pieces once things start going pear-shaped.
India lost the Test series 3-1 in England earlier this year after leading one-nil following two Tests, as they lost the last two Tests by an innings each. And in Australia in 2011-12, India lost the fourth and final Test in Adelaide by 298 runs after innings defeats in the previous two Tests, News.com.au reported.
Fleming said that the home side's pace attack would use the swing and seam on offer at the Gabba in the second Test to trouble India's top-order, but conditions for Tuesday's first Test in Adelaide should be more to India's liking.
And the touring team's middle-order dasher Virat Kohli, who endured such a lean series in England, has returned to Adelaide where he scored his maiden hundred in January 2012 in his eighth Test.
Fleming said that Adelaide's the perfect start for India, adding that it's not going to be as quick and as bouncy as the other pitches. He said that it was the swinging and seaming conditions that did Australia more than the bounce, so it might be a way the Indian batsmen can get big runs and set themselves up for a series.
Fleming said that the Indians haven't had a lot of cricket out there, besides Kohli, in that top six.
VVS Laxman, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and the little master himself Sachin Tendulkar are absent this time from India's top-six who batted in that Adelaide Test of January 2012.
Australia hit six centuries in the 2011-12 series which the home side won 4-0, while Kohli's was India's only hundred, the report added.
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