New Delhi: Australia pacer Scott Boland hope to emerge on top in a duel with India batter KL Rahul in a four-day A-team game that begins in Melbourne from Thursday.
The match is expected to serve as a warm-up game for the players ahead of the five-match Test series for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
Rahul and keeper-batter Dhruv Jurel are part of the India A team, who have been sent early to Australia to acclimatise to the conditions.
Speaking ahead of the match, Boland said he hopes to dominate the Indian batters in the crunch series.
“I was lucky to bowl to him in a Test over in India a couple of years ago but it’ll be nice to play against him in our backyard,” Boland said, as quoted by ESPNCricinfo.
On his debut Australia tour in 2015, Rahul had scored a century (110 in Sydney) but he has only managed 187 runs in dive matches at an average of 20.77, which Boland is aware of and wants to exploit.
“He’s a world-class player but someone I think we can get on top of pretty early and hopefully stay on top of him for the majority of the summer,” Boland said.
The 32-year-old Rahul was dropped from the India team for the last two Tests against New Zealand after he managed only 0 and 12 in the first match in Bengaluru.
After his hundred against South Africa at Centurion in December 2023, Rahul has struggled to score heavily, managing only two half centuries in nine innings against SA, England, Bangladesh and New Zealand.
But he could be included in the Indian team for the first Test against Australia from November 22 in Perth should skipper Rohit Sharma is excused from the first Test for personal reasons.
India are under pressure after crashing to a 0-3 whitewash at home to New Zealand but Boland said the team has enough quality players to take the setback in stride.
“There’s so much more bounce here, more seam. The way they’ll structure their team (in Australia) will be completely different to what you see over in India,” the 35-year-old said.
