Australia has decided to hire English spinner Monty Panesar ahead of the four –test series against India starting from 23rd February 2017. By doing so, Australia hopes to improve its not-so-impressive record in India.
34 year old Panesar has taken 167 wickets in his 50-test career and was also part of the England’s test series win against India in 2012. He took 17 wickets at an average of 26.82 in the final three matches of the series.
Panesar has been playing club cricket in Sydney and will fly up to Queensland this week to work with Australian test spinner Steve O’Keefe and opener Matt Renshaw at Cricket Australia’s Centre of Excellence in Brisbane. Even though he has not played a test match since England’s 5-0 Ashes whitewash in Australia in 2013-14, yet he carries a wealth of knowledge with him, especially when it comes to bowling in Asia and the spinner is keen to help out in any way possible.
“Obviously there has been a question mark over Australian batsmen in away series and so I hope to be able to give them a hand with that stuff and obviously help with the spin bowlers as well,”
Panesar's advice won't be limited to slow bowlers as Australia's batsmen prepare to do battle with star Indian spinners Ravi Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja. The pair took 54 wickets between them as the world No.1 side hammered England in their recent five-Test series victory.
Apart from this, the Australian cricket team will spend time in the United Arab Emirates ahead of next month's tour of India. The Test squad will train on pitches made from Pakistani soil at the state-of-the-art ICC Academy in Dubai in a bid to adapt to Asian conditions.
