As the preparation for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy begins, Australia has hired the services of a Ravi Ashwin 'impersonator'.
Having no warm-up matches in the lead-up to the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Australia has had to come up with unique ways to get ready to take on India. This includes changing the pitch to match the Indian conditions and now hiring bowlers with similar actions to the Indian spinners.
As reported by cricket.com.au,ย Mahesh Pithiya a 21-year-old spinner was flown to Bangalore to help as a net bowler against the Australian batters.
Pithiya a right-arm off-spinner has a similar action to Ravi Ashwin. Ashwin has always troubled Australian batters in his home country, especially the left-hand batters against whom he has taken 200 wickets.
And it begins. Australiaโs tour of India is underway #INDvAUS pic.twitter.com/OU3VQ8zPcZ
— Louis Cameron (@LouisDBCameron) February 2, 2023
According toย Cricbuzz, his services were requested after the Australian coaching staff watched clips of his bowling action on the social media site Instagram.
Alongside Pithiya, Australia has relied heavily on Ashton Agar and Daniel Vettori to resemble Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel. One of these two players will accompany Ashwin in the Indian starting team with Jadeja the heavy favourite.
"We feel as though we get a bit more control in Bangalore to replicate what we're going to come up against and then we go into Nagpur fresh," coach Andrew McDonald said.
"Hopefully it pays dividends at the back end."
