The first Test between India and Australia at Nagpur starts in a few days and the excitement is already in the air with some words being exchanged between former players of two teams even if current ones are keeping quiet. Ian Healy, former Australian wicketkeeper and batter, earlier made a statement on how ‘unfair’ Indian wickets can help the home team beat the Australians. Healy’s take was that if Australia gets a ‘fair’ wicket where Indian spinners don’t have an unfair advantage, they will go on to win back the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Former India opener Wasim Jaffer took a potshot at Healy by tweeting: “Pretty sure India didn’t prepare wickets in Australia in 2020-21 and 2018-19, Mr. Healy.”

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Jaffer, subtly, reminded Healy of India’s two back-to-back series wins in Australia in conditions which were not ‘spin-friendly’. Jaffer had earlier tweeted about how playing spin, especially that of R Ashwin, on Indian pitches has already scared the Australians. He chose to not word it like that but Jaffer said Ashwin was already in their heads. As per reports, the visiting team has been practising on dry and rough pitches to given themselves a match-like experience to tackle the turn and low bounce. They also hired a Ashwin ‘duplicate’, a net bowler who bowls with almost the same action, to prepare for the spin genius from India.

Check out tweets from Jaffer and Harbhajan below:

This the main thing they have in their head _ https://t.co/5hepKjSAiU pic.twitter.com/eGWddhE5FU

— Harbhajan Turbanator (@harbhajan_singh) February 4, 2023

To add more spice to the banter, former Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh quote retweeted Jaffer, posted a pic of rough and dry pitch and wrote: “This the main thing they have in their head.”

Strangely the players from both the sides have been quiet ahead of the first Test, which is not always the case before a India vs Australia Test series. Mind games is something Aussies have relied on before start of a series to ensure the opposition gets unnecessarily careful about a few things and becomes defensive in their approach. Over the years, Team India, especially in leadership of Virat Kohli, has learnt how to give it back to the Aussies. No wonder, India have won the last 3 editions of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. However, Australians will be eager to take it back with the likes of Rishabh Pant, Jasprit Bumrah missing in the squad.