The Test rivalry of the year is finally here with India and Australia battling it out in the first match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy at Adelaide Oval. It was a memorable day for Australian all-rounder Cameron Green, who made his debut into the longest format of the game.
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Green finished the first day’s play with figures of 9-2-15-0, but not before he impressed the cricket fraternity with his bowling.
Ahead of the mega-clash in Adelaide, former Australian skipper Allan Border lauded the 21-year-old Green and rated him as a quality cricketer. Border, who led Australia in 93 Tests, reckons that Green bats like Ricky Ponting, and has the potential to be a great cricketer.
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Border then made a hilarious statement on legendary Australian fast bowler Glenn McGrath while in a conversation with presenter Harsha Bhogle and former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar, as to how Green bowls a bit faster than McGrath, who was a medium pacer.
Cameron Green is an exciting young talent: Allan Border
“He is an exciting young talent. What I like about him is that he has backed his potential with performance. He has been scoring lots of runs in Sheffield Sheild.
Lot of people have said that he is the best they have seen since Ricky Ponting. You went to the academy with Ponting, so you know what a quality youngster he was and turned out to be one of the greats of the game,” Border said on Sony Sports Network.
Prior to the Test series, the 21-year-old showed his prowess in the practice Test matches and has been churning numbers in First-Class cricket, with 1321 runs in 21 Tests at an average of 55.04 including 5 hundreds, and 33 wickets while averaging a mere 21.72.
He added, “So if Green is anywhere near that then we have found a really good cricketer then you throw in the fact that he is around 6 foot 6 and bowls a heavy ball. He is probably around 10 ks quicker than you pidgy (Glenn McGrath), bowls around 140. So he is a real deal, don’t worry about that.
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Both Sanjay Manjrekar and Harsha Bhogle were in splits after listening to Allan Border’s statement, with Harsha adding, “That is a proper sledge.”
Opting to bat first, India posted 233/6 by stumps of Day 1. The visitors lost openers Prithvi Shaw (0) and Mayank Agarwal (16) to Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins in the first and 19th overs respectively but bounced back into the game credits to the 68-run partnership between Cheteshwar Pujara (43) and skipper Virat Kohli (74). Pujara’s dismissal brought in Ajinkya Rahane (40) who then added 88-runs to the fourth wicket.
