Australia’s ODI series in India may provide more questions than answers

A fterthoughts don’t get much less thought than this. Australia’s Test series in India has come to an end after six weeks of scrutiny and emotion, probably leaving the visitors feeling a little satisfaction at some of the gains and a lot more frustration at the shortfalls that cost them a chance to win it. Now players have to switch focus immediately to one-day cricket. Steve Smith, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Marnus Labuschagne, Travis Head and Mitchell Starc are the Test players staying on, with David Warner and Ashton Agar returning from a brief spell at home after leaving the Test tour partway through.

The company line is that this will be useful preparation for the 50-over World Cup in India later this year. That might mean something if Australia did not already have a three-match date in India in September for exactly that purpose. The later series has long been in the calendar, the current one was shoehorned in a couple months ago when it became clear that a few unexploited days could be manufactured between the Tests and the new season of the Indian Premier League. This was also around the time that Cricket Australia cited ethical concerns while cancelling a planned series against Afghanistan due in a similar late-March window.

Really it’s about a few extra dollars in the bank for the Indian board ahead of their US$6bn domestic tournament, and the willingness of Australia’s board to play ball literally and figuratively whenever the BCCI asks. See also the visiting Australian prime minister smiling and waving like a queasy ventriloquist dummy during the ceremony staged to direct a stadium’s worth of praise at India’s prime minister in Ahmedabad during the final Test match of the recent series.

It’s no surprise