Australian cricket team skipper Pat Cummins believes that there is not a single India cricketer who can slot into his side. Ahead of the five-match Test series against India, Australia cricketers like Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh and Travis Head were asked to pick one player from the opposition side who can join their team seamlessly. While all of them named an individual, Cummins just replied – “No one”. Coming to the other players, Lyon picked Virat Kohli, Mitchell Marsh picked Rishabh Pant.  “It’d be a pretty strong batting lineup having Smith, Marnus and Virat in your top order,” said Nathan Lyon.

Everyone picking their favourites or likeable players

Meanwhile Captain Pat Cummins: Nah no onepic.twitter.com/SkY3kadfPM

— Pallavi (@Pallavi_paul21) November 19, 2024

Travis Head picked India skipper Rohit Sharma while Scott Boland picked fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah.

“I’ll go Rohit Sharma at the top, he is batting pretty aggressively, isn’t he? I am happy with an aggressive bloke. Think you would have thought a generic response like Virat so I’ll go the other way and go Rohit at the top,” said Travis Head. 

Meanwhile, Lyon opened up on his battles with star India batter Virat Kohli, including one at the Adelaide Test back in 2014 in which the 36-year-old smashed twin centuries in his test captaincy debut and made the spinner one of the prime targets of his assault.

After a horrid home Test season against Bangladesh and New Zealand and underwhelming Test numbers over the years, Virat will be making his fifth Test series tour of Australia under the toughest of circumstances, with his long-format legacy and spot on the line as India awaits a transition following ICC World Test Championship 2023-25 cycle.

His battle with Lyon would be an interesting one to watch, given the star batter’s long-standing struggles against spin bowling lately, especially in spin-friendly conditions at home.

Virat has an incredible record against Lyon, scoring 529 runs against him in 32 innings, averaging 75.6 and striking at around 51. He has been dismissed seven times by Lyon.

Speaking about their battles on cricket.com.au, Nathan recalled how during his Adelaide special, Virat would talk about his “beautiful forehands”, comparable to Swiss tennis legend Roger Federer in order to get under the skin of Australian players.

“The battle that comes to me is the 2014 test at Adelaide Oval where he got the 100’s in both innings. I was bowling to him and he was batting that easily. He would come down to non-striker and just say Federer,” said Nathan.

“And I was like, OK, what is this and he kept doing it, kept doing it. Every time. Every time he would come down and he was like, Federer, Federer,” he added.

(With ANI inputs)