India vs Australia 2013: Five factors that will impact the 4th ODI

Australia’s short ball strategy

It’s not a good feeling when a five and a half ounce leather ball zooms past your nose or tickles your rib cage. And when that ball is hurled at 90 miles per hour – the discomfort increases to another level. The love story between Indian batsmen and short pitch deliveries has been a complicated one since time immemorial.

The Indian batsmen has always struggled to handle a delivery that’s above their waist and foreign teams has often used it against them as a very potent strategy. It’s been the same this series as well.

After a receiving a pasting from the Indian batsmen in the T20 game at Rajkot, the Aussies switched to the age old “bowl it at the ribcage” strategy. It backfired at Jaipur, where the ball sat up at a nice height, but it bore fruit in both Pune and Mohali.

Although, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and MS Dhoni doesn’t have much hassles with handling the short pitch stuff, the left handers in the line-up were exposed by Mitchell Johnson. He bowled with fire and hit the deck hard to extract some awkward bounce that saw Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh and Ravindra Jadeja perish. However, if the Australians overdo it, there’s a big chance of them being carted for easy runs.

This is a very strong Indian batting outfit but it surely can be rattled. Will that happen again in Ranchi?

Verdict: Watch out for Mitch Johnson