Melbourne [Australia], November 21 (ANI): Former England captain Michael Vaughan said that the Australian bowlers' pace trio of skipper Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, and Josh Hazlewood and spinner Nathan Lyon will play a crucial role in Australia's success against India during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and hailed the bowling quartet as the country's 'greatest".
The Border-Gavaskar Trophy starting with the Perth Test on Friday would be a clash of two exciting bowling attacks. While the Australian side has the class, experience and enviable wicket-tally of Cummins, Starc, Hazlewood, and Lyon, the Indian pace attack is inexperienced. Though star pacer Jasprit Bumrah is leading the attack and Mohammed Siraj is making his second Australian tour, the rest of the attack featuring Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Prasidh Krishna are inexperienced. But their performances in domestic cricket and the Indian Premier League (IPL) have been solid enough to be excited about them.
Speaking on SEN, Vaughan said that during Pakistan's ODI game against Perth, there was plenty of bounce on the surface and during the match against India, there will be a "little bit of action" for both sides' seamers.
"It is the best series at the minute because of the two quality teams, over the last six or seven years Australia and India have been consistently the best two Test match teams," he added.
Vaughan said that while India has dominated and has had the upper hand, he is intrigued to see how Australia fights back.
"This Australian team is quality, particularly that bowling attack. That quartet you could argue is Australia's greatest bowling quartet of all time. So I am intrigued to see how both sets of batters go against the bounce in Perth and also the quality they are going to have to face," he signed off.
As of right now, all Aussie frontline bowling stars, Lyon (530 wickets), Starc (358 wickets), Hazlewood (273 wickets) and Cummins (269 wickets) are among the top ten Test wicket-takers of their nation.
Australia's best quartet in terms of Test wickets taken is Shane Warne (708 wickets), Glenn McGrath (563 wickets), Brett Lee (310 wickets) and Jason Gillespie (259 wickets), who all dominated the 2000s era of the sport and played 16 Tests together.
After the series opener in Perth on November 22, the second Test, featuring the day-night format, will take place under lights at Adelaide Oval from December 6 to 10.
Fans will then turn their attention to The Gabba in Brisbane for the third Test from December 14 to 18. The traditional Boxing Day Test, scheduled from December 26 to 30 at Melbourne's iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground, will mark the series' penultimate stage.
The fifth and final Test will be held at the Sydney Cricket Ground from January 3 to 7, promising an exciting climax to a highly anticipated series.
India's squad for Border-Gavaskar Series: Rohit Sharma (c), Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammad Shami, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shubman Gill, Ravindra Jadeja, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Sarfaraz Khan, Virat Kohli, Prasidh Krishna, Rishabh Pant (wk), KL Rahul, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Mohammed Siraj, Washington Sundar.
Australia squad for the first Test: Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Nathan McSweeney, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc. (ANI)