The gigantic Optus Stadium is a new cricketing venue, having hosted just four Tests since Australia locked horns with India in the inaugural five-day game here in December 2018. It’s an impressive but intimidating structure, a modern monstrosity of sorts inside which one can get the feeling of being trapped in a maze. It has also become somewhat of a modern bastion for the Australians, who have won all four previous Tests here and have therefore chosen its pace, bounce and carry with which to attack India in the latest showdown between the two cricketing powerhouses.

India’s dominance

Australia are hosting India for a five-Test series for the first time since 1991-92, a testament to how much the battle for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy has come on in the last couple of decades. The hype around these contests is humongous and for the large part, the cricket has lived up to the build-up and the expectations, evidenced by the fact that each of the last four series between the two sides starting from 2017 has ended with an identical 2-1 scoreline, all in favour of India.
In a remarkable break from norm, many players in the current Australian side haven’t tasted a series victory against India — the last time the Aussies came up trumps was in 2014-15, when they won 2-0 at home in Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s final Test series. They have held the Ashes several times and are the defending World Test Championship winners, but they haven’t taken kindly to being beaten twice in a row in their own backyard by the feisty Indians, who must be a little low on confidence following their unprecedented home whitewash by New Zealand.