A shattering defeat to New Zealand on home soil would have caused a “little bit of damage” to India’s confidence but Australia will not make the mistake of underestimating the visitors, said charismatic batter Marnus Labuschagne here on Tuesday.
The world No. 2 India is heading into the five-Test Border-Gavaskar series, starting here on Friday, following its whitewash at home, which ended its 12-year unbeaten run in its backyard.
Australia’s middle-order mainstay Labuschagne believes the loss to the Kiwis would have dented India’s confidence.
“It’s really hard to judge. They played in completely different conditions — spinning conditions — but having India come here off the back of a loss at home is something that’s never happened before (in my career),” Labuschagne told the media.
“I think that is a good thing in terms of… they are probably a little bit lower on confidence, not coming off a Test victory, losing to New Zealand 3-0. I think that’s going to do a little bit of damage to their confidence.”
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However, Labuschagne insisted that Australia, who have lost each of their last four series to India both home and away, will have to guard against complacency.
“They’re a quality line-up and they’re one of the best teams in the world. So you can never underestimate a team like that,” he said.
India staged an incredible comeback on their last Australia tour in 2020-21 to win 2-1, despite the absence of regular skipper Virat Kohli and injuries to several other frontline players along the way.
“That’s what happened in 2021 — the likes of Natarajan played, (Mohammad) Siraj got his first crack in Australia, Washington Sundar played,” Labuschagne recalled.
“They had all these guys that were probably a little bit new — Shubman (Gill) played those couple of games (in the 2020-21 series) – so there were new faces around,” he added.
With India set to take the field without regular captain Rohit Sharma and No. 3 batter Gill in the first Test at the Optus Stadium here, Labuschagne said India have enough talent in their ranks to meet all challenges.
“They’re a quality line-up and they’ve showed that over a period of time. You can’t ever underestimate the depth of Indian cricket,” he said.
“Anyone that’s gets the opportunity to play for India have had to do a lot of hard work and find their way into that side… to actually play for a team like that, you have to be a very good player,” Labuschagne added.c