Skipper Tim Paine has downplayed the impact of the crowd during Australia’s home series against India later this year.
“I don’t think it (no crowd) should affect anyone. Once you go out there, it very quickly narrows down to what’s happening on the pitch,” said Paine.
The Australian government had earlier announced that some venues will be able to host up to 10,000 spectators for sporting events from July,. Paine, however, chose to focus on the controllables.
“Most players tend to forget the crowd once they’re in the heat of the battle. So crowd or no crowd, it’ll all boil down to performing and executing your skills better,” added Paine.
Paine was also of the view that the outcome of the Test series against India will largely depend on how the Australian batsmen fare against a potent bowling attack.
“We certainly struggled against them last time. That said, they (India) played really well. I’m sure we’ve learnt a lot from playing against them last summer... we think we are a better team now than we were then.”
“Again a lot of the time in that last series, we didn’t get enough runs on the board to put them under pressure. So as good as our bowling attack is, you still need to be scoring runs in Test matches to get yourself in a winning position.”
Meanwhile, there has been a spike in coronavirus cases in Victoria and Paine said “all options are on the table” as far as the venue for the Boxing Day Test is concerned. It is traditionally held at the MCG.
“It’s a fluid situation and no one knows what will happen three to four months down the line. So, fingers crossed that things go well enough for us to be able to do that (play at the MCG) but we are spoilt for choices in Australia, we’ve got some world-class stadiums, so in case something had to change, we’ve plenty of options.”
