Press Trust of India
Adelaide, Jan 24: India might have been thoroughly outplayed in the ODI series, but former Australia batsman Dean Jones Sunday said the visitors will do much better in the three T20 Internationals as they have a balanced side, which was missing in the one-dayers.
“Look, I think India are much better balanced in T20 cricket. They have good top three batsmen, MS Dhoni is the finisher in the middle, Yuvraj Singh is coming too and then you have the spinners. It is a balanced side, just not for ODIs in Australia,” said Jones.
Jones is convinced that the Indian team has been solely concentrating on the Twenty20 series with the World T20 just eight weeks away. “The bottomline is what India, and MS Dhoni, want out of this tour. I am sure they wanted to win the ODI series but they were also giving a lot of youngsters chances in the ODIs. I think India will be more worried about winning the T20 series. That’s the priority,” Jones said.
“It doesn’t matter whether they win or lose ODIs in Australia. What matters is playing T20s against Australia, who have a half decent team and that too without Mitchell Starc but are still doing well. The T20s here are more important than the ODIs,” he added.
Stating that India would be looking to build-up their options before they settled on a final squad, Jones said: “You want to pick your team for the World T20 now and give the players some matches to get ready for that tournament. Form is everything in T20 cricket. For example, if Yuvraj can get some runs here, it will get his confidence going. You pitch it up to him then and he will whack it.”
