India will struggle in Australia: Boland warns

Australian pacer Scott Boland wants to extend the barren run of KL Rahul and keep him under pressure ahead of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy when he faces the Indian batter in the four-day A-Team match in Melbourne from Thursday.

Rahul along with wicketkeeper batter Dhruv Jurel flew early to Australia, and will appear for India A in the second four-day game at the MCG.

“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 was quoted saying by ESPNCricinfo.

Rahul made a hundred on his debut tour to Australia in 2015, a 110 at Sydney, but his overall performance Down Under remains scratchy, evidenced by an average of 20.77 across four Tests.

Boland wants to heap more misery on the 32-year-old.

“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,” said Boland.

Rahul was dropped from India's eleven after the first Test against New Zealand at Bengaluru where he made 0 and 12.

It was a continuation of his modest run since cracking a hundred against South Africa at Centurion in December 2023.

Since then, he made just two fifties across nine innings against SA, England, Bangladesh and New Zealand.

But the Bengaluru man could return to the eleven if skipper Rohit Sharma skips the first Test against the Aussies at Perth, starting from November 22, owing to personal reasons.

Boland also remained cautious about the impact of India's recent 0-3 whitewash at home by the Kiwis.

The 35-year-old said India has enough experience to make a comeback.

“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,” he noted.