DECIDING FACTORS

Haunted by Head: Travis Head has been terrorising Team India for the last few years. Be it the ODI World Cup final, the World Test Championship final or a Test series, Head has feasted on Indian bowlers, his crushing hundreds proving to be matchwinning knocks.

India must neutralise the Head threat early in the innings or he will just run away with the game even before Rohit Sharma realises it. Who will stop Head? Has to be Mohammed Shami as the Aussie is wobbly against the seaming ball. The spinners might not worry him much, though Varun Chakravar thy s novelty factor could surprise the lefthander.

Care of Iyer: Virat Kohli is back among runs, Rohit Sharma is playing confident strokes and Shubman Gill is at his elegant best. But it is Shreyas Iyer who seems to be the priceless gem in the Indian batting lineup. In good, fluent form, the righthander will be the middleovers manager. A fantastic player of spin, Iyer nowadays dares the bouncers from the pacers as well. If he can string the start and end of the team innings effortlessly, India will have little to worry about runmaking.

Spin, spin & spin: As has been quite evident by now, spin is going to play a mas sive role in Dubai. And that leads us to an array of ques tions, the answers to which will decide the outcome of the first semifinal. Will India play a fourpronged spin attack? Will Varun Chakravarthy impose his mystery craft on the Aus sies, or will Glenn Maxwell, who has handled the Indian in the IPL, have an antidote ready? Will Kohli, who has succumbed to legspin often of late, be shaky against Adam Zampa? Will Australia include an extra spinner in their XI?

SORE POINT

India: Varun `mystery Chakravarthy is billed as In dia s trump card. He has the variations, opposi tion batters have played him the least and he took five wickets in the last match, in Dubai. But Dubai has also given Varun nightmares. In the 2021 T20 World Cup, the spinner had toiled for three matches without taking a single wicket. Past imperfect.

Australia: While India have had three good games on the road to the semis, Austral ia have played only one full game. Their match against South Africa was completely washed out and against Af ghanistan, it was abandoned just past the halfway mark. Ahead of a stern India test, are they fully ready? Inter nally, they might have unan swered questions.