00:00The Indian cricket team's next T20I assignment will be the three-match series against Afghanistan in Delhi.
00:05The spotlight will be on Captain Shreyas a year who hasn't, let's be fair, had the best of starts as
00:12the team's T20I captain.
00:14My colleague Nikhil Nas spoke with Australian legend Ricky Ponting who works very closely with Shreyas at the Punjab Kings.
00:21And this is what he had to say about the Indian T20 captain.
00:26And early next year, Ricky, Australia are going to be here in India for a five-test match series.
00:32India in a precarious position when it comes to the WTC standing at the moment.
00:36They need to win 5-0, 4-1, something to that extent.
00:39How do you see that series pan out?
00:42Oh, look, it's always a hard tour for Australia.
00:44It's always been a hard place for us to win.
00:47But saying that, you know, a lot of other countries in the last few years have been able to go
00:51to India and beat India at home.
00:53I mean, New Zealand being a great example and South Africa obviously did the same thing.
00:56So Australia can take some comfort for that.
01:00You know, I think India probably, if they want to win more games at home, need to be a bit
01:04more thoughtful with the way that they prepare their wickets there.
01:07I think they've gone way too far with preparing spinning wickets that their batters haven't been able to cope on.
01:12And opposition teams have been able to play better in India than they have.
01:15So, yeah, so look, saying that, I think the Australian team will, you know, probably be slightly different come that
01:21time of year as well.
01:23When Australia are in India, I think some changes will be made to our batting line-up in particular.
01:27And I can't see us taking all our fast bowlers to India either if the wickets look like they're going
01:31to be the way that they've been the last few tours there.
01:34So, yeah, let's wait and see.
01:36I mean, it's, as I said, a challenging tour for any country that goes there.
01:41But Australia have found it a bit harder than most.
01:42Because you spoke about that, you know, how much difference a captain can make in terms of results, especially in
01:49a T20 side,
01:50what have you made of your skipper at Punjab Kings in his avatar as the Indian T20 captain that is
01:57Shreyasaya?
01:58Didn't have a great time in Ireland, England, then won a series in Zimbabwe.
02:02Is it the similar Shreyasaya that we see in T20 cricket alongside you in the IPL, or was it a
02:08different avatar of Shreyasaya that we saw for India?
02:11Yeah, look, I can't speak highly enough about Shreyas.
02:14I think I made my point pretty clear when I spent as much money as I did on him in
02:18the auction.
02:18I wanted to work with him again.
02:19I'd worked with him in Delhi for four or five years before he went to KKR.
02:24One, I knew I could bring the best out of him as a player, but also I just wanted to
02:28work with him again as a captain and a leader.
02:29And he was awesome, you know, to get us through to the final in our first season, then to start
02:34the way we did last year.
02:35I know he had a tough run at the back end of the IPL and a tough run when he
02:39took over the Indian job, but no doubt in my mind, he was the right man for it.
02:42And he'll be the right man for that job, I think, until he's retired from T20 cricket.
02:46That's how highly I hold him in stature in the game.
02:51And I'm sure that that record that he's got with India now will turn around pretty quickly in the next
02:56couple of years.
