Cracks visible in Aussie camp, says Pandit

Mumbai: Mid-way through the on-going four-match Test series, world champions Australia find themselves at the receiving end and are under tremendous pressure to deliver but former India stumper and coach, Chandrakanth Pandit, ruling out such a turn around, said the cracks in their team was quite visible during the second Test match at Mohali, which the tourists lost by 320 runs.

"The Aussies came here with high expectations of retaining the Border-Gavaskar Trophy but things have not worked out their way. Naturally the team, particularly their skipper Ricky Ponting will be under tremendous pressure to deliver as they are already 0-1 down and were not expected to lose the Mohali Test with such huge margin. If you go by the Australian media reports there are certainly cracks showing up in their team before the crucial third Test at Feroz Shah Kotla," Pandit told Cricketnext.com on Thursday.

"I read that Ponting, who was concerned about the Indian spinners earlier, particularly Harbhajan Singh, is now forced to come up with suitable strategy for Ishant (Sharma) and Zaheer (Khan), which means that they had under estimated our pace bowlers before coming here and now they are suddenly faced with a situation where they have to start planning from the scratch and with a spinner-friendly wicket likely to greet them at Kotla, they are a confused lot and there seems to be lot misunderstanding among themselves," he added.

Speaking about the drawbacks in their team, Pandit said, bringing an inexperienced team to India was itself a big mistake and the failure of their two best players -- Matthew Hayden and Brett Lee – to deliver so far has not helped their cause.

"Their best batsman and best bowler – Hayden and Lee – have failed to fire in a big way so far and that must have added lots of uncertainty in the team. Lee, according to me their best bowler, has not been used properly in this series so far. I can understand his displeasure over the whole thing.

"At the same time Ponting is in a very tight spot as neither can he expect miracles to happen overnight nor can he expect any sympathy from the media back home," Pandit observed.

"When a team depends heavily on just one bowler (Lee), which is very unfair, and if he fails to deliver panic sets in the camp and this team, nowhere near to world champions’ status, is no exception. Until and unless their openers give solid starts consistently and their bowlers get their acts together, which are unlikely as they don’t have a specialist spinner, the Aussies chances of saving this series are very, very slim," Pandit added.

Predicting a 2-0 win to the hosts, Pandit said, the absence of suspended middle order batsman Andrew Symonds has been felt by the tourists in a big way and nothing can prevent the hosts from wrapping up the series in Delhi itself.

"Probably in such a scenario, exiled Andrew Symonds would have made a big difference to the team’s combination. Now their confidence level is at all-time low as they know their toughest test is yet come and there is hardly any time to prepare themselves for the Kotla match. They are also aware that the Indians will go for the kill in Delhi itself and look to wrap up the series to prove their domination," former Mumbai coach said.

"However, The only way they (Aussies) can retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy is to draw the third Test match by hook or crook and then go all out and win the fourth and final Test match at Nagpur and square the series, which again looks an uphill task as the hosts have scented blood and will surely go for the kill now," he added.