Border-Gavaskar Trophy: Adam Voges Talks About Australia's Retirement Plan, Tight Schedule, Underperforming Top Order

Indian Men’s cricket team has tough and packed schedule for the next six months. After the Asian Games, they welcome West Indies, before embarking on a big tour in New Zealand. Following that, both Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe will come to India for a three-match ODI series.

After only a 15 day break, the team in Blue will welcome Australia for another Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Though a home series, this will test India’s mettle, against what will be a strong Aussie side.

This will also be the first Border-Gavaskar series without two of India’s stalwarts, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. The two seasoned batsmen have been permanent fixture in numerous India- Australia series for a decade. How will India cope without two batsmen with over nearly 14000 runs between them?

The former Australia International, Adam Voges seems to think India will still give his country a strong competition, despite going through a bit of a transition period.

Adam Voges Believes India Will be Able to Cope Without Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma

The former Australian batsman pointed out that while the departure of two of the most seasoned batsmen will certainly leave a hole and therefore, they will be in transition, that doesn’t mean they won’t field a strong side, especially at home.

He stressed that India has a massive talent pool, full of young and exciting players who are ready to step up. Voges expects Australia to come prepared and expect to battle against a tough Indian team.

“There's some young, exciting talent that's coming through, and the thing that I’ve always seen every time I've come to India is how much talent there is here. “I know the Australian team will be expecting a very strong Indian team to come up against, and it's going to be a great challenge, so I'm sure we're looking forward to it.”

Much like India, the senior players in the Aussie set-up are beginning to call it a day. Given there are quite a few in their side, mass retirement isn’t out of the question, which could send them into a transition phase, much like it did back when the likes of McGrath, Warne, etc. retired.

How will the Kangaroos deal with that situation? Voges believes Cricket Australia would have to come up with a plan to deal with such a situation.

Adam Voges Feels CA Will Proceed in a Staged Manner When it Comes to Retirements

While it’s up to players when they would like to hang up their boots, the former Australian batsman believes that CA might not see it that way and would phase them out slowly but effectively.

He feels the cricket board has learned from its past mistakes and would not allow all of them to retire on their own timeline. Instead, it would be according to their schedule so they wouldn’t be left unprepared.

“Australia learned a really good lesson when (Shane) Warne, (Glenn) McGrath and (Justin) Langer all retired at the same time, and it took a little while to be able to rebuild from that. So, I would imagine that there will be staged retirements for some of the absolute greats of Australian cricket, but equally those guys probably have the right to continue playing until they have decided that their time is up”

Adam also believes the Australian team might be better prepared when they head to India to play the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

Also Read: BGT 2027: Ranchi Test Faces Venue Change, Three Cities Reportedly In Contention To Host - Report

Australia Test-Heavy Schedule, Might Give Them Edge over India, come January

Much like India, the Aussies have a lot of matches coming up before the Border-Gavaskar series. While Team in Blue has a lot of limited-overs matches and would only play 2 test matches before that series, the Kangaroos have a lot of test matches on their plate. They play a test series in South Africa before taking on New Zealand at home for tests.

“Australia has got so much Test cricket coming up, about to embark on a Test series in South Africa, have New Zealand at home in Australia before we get to the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.”

While the schedule is taxing, they would be better prepared as a result. This would also give their opening batsman time to get ready and get some meaningful runs under their belt.

Aussie Top Order Have Struggled Over the Past Year but Will Have Numerous Opportunities to get Runs

Voges admitted that Australia’s top order has struggled to produce runs, especially the likes of Marnus Labuschagne. The team has won a lot of tests, but their top order still sticks out like a sore thumb, and that slump in form is now more than visible.

He believes it’s now time for the likes of Marnus and others to step up. They will have numerous opportunities to do so before CA would be forced to make some hard choices.

“There has been a lot of talk publicly about Marnus' position in the team. he would probably be the first to admit performance-wise he hasn't been where he would like it to have been over the last 12-24 months. He has got another opportunity, as does the rest of the Australian top order, to try and make an impression in South Africa. I'm sure all of them would love to have a bigger output over the next 12 months.”