Australia's tour of India is getting bad to worse for the visiting team. Not only have the results not gone in their favour but even their injury crisis is getting more serious. In a massive blow to the team's chances of a comeback after falling 0-2 down, experienced opener David Warner has now been ruled out of the last two Test matches against India.
It is pertinent to note that Warner had suffered a concussion as well as a hairline fracture on his elbow which forced him to miss the second innings of the Delhi Test with Matt Renshow replacing him. Warner hadn't been in the best of form with the bat with some experts even raising questions over his place in the team. With him not playing any part for the rest of the series, there are speculation on whether the 36-year-old has played his last Test match especially because the Kangaroos might look to make some changes before the Ashes series in June-July.
In his last 14 Tests, the southpaw has averaged 26.39 with just one half-century in 24 innings. In Warner's absence, Travis Head is likely to open the batting with Usman Khawaja in the Indore and Ahmedabad Tests especially after the manner in which Head played a counter-attacking innings in the second Test match. Head, eventually, departed for a 46-ball 43.
Despite India's win on the third day, India captain Rohit Sharma had admitted that Head's knock had forced the team management to think differently as Aussies were scoring at around 5 runs an over when played on Day 2.
"Sometimes you got to keep it simple and not complicate too much about what is happening. Yesterday they were about 62 (61) for one in 12 overs which is more than five runs per over. I could see we were panicking a little and we were trying to change fields way too many times," Rohit had said after the Delhi Test.
"In the morning, I just wanted to tell those three guys (spinners) to keep it calm. We don't need to change field as often as we did last evening. We keep it there, we keep it tight, and let batters make that mistake," he added.
Earlierl, Australian fast bowler Josh Hazlewood was also ruled out of the remaining two matches of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy as he failed to recover in time from his left achilles injury.