Australia is always a very tough place to play cricket for all the touring teams. The conditions are just so different there. The pitches are hard and although they don’t offer a lot of movement off the deck, they offer an incredible amount of bounce. If you have to perform well in Australia as a visiting player, you have to show proper application with both bat and ball. Let’s discuss some of the Indian players who have excelled in Australia and have won the man of the match awards the most number of times on Australian turf.
1. Sachin Tendulkar (6 times)
Most of Tendulkar’s memorable performances in Australia came in Test cricket as he scored 6 Test hundreds in Australia and a couple of times, he won the man of the match award as well.
But, the performance that people can’t forget is when Tendulkar scored a hundred and a 90 in the two finals of the CB series in 2008. It was the first time ever that India beat Australia in the best of three finals of the CB series and Tendulkar had a huge role to play in that as he was the man of the match in both those games.
2. Virat Kohli (5 times)
Virat Kohli is not too far away from Tendulkar in terms of winning the man of the match awards in Australia and he, in all probability, will go past Tendulkar as well, as he has already won five man of the match awards in Australia.
India is currently on the tour of Australia and although Kohli is scheduled to return mid-way through the tour, he will still play 6 white ball games and a Test match. Considering the form he has shown in Australia over the years, Kohli can be backed to get a couple of man of the match awards in these 7 games.
3. Kris Srikkanth (5 times)
Srikkanth is a bit of a surprising name on this list. He was a really dashing opening batsman of his time, but since he used to play flamboyant cricket and used to take a lot of risk early on, he was not as consistent as some of the other Indian batsmen.
However, despite that, Srikkanth ended up making a match winning difference for India in Australia on plenty of occasions and he won 5 man of the match awards in the matches played in Australia.
4. Kapil Dev (3 times)
Kapil Dev is probably one of India’s greatest players of all time in ODI wicket. He was not just India’s strike bowler with the new ball as he could swing the ball both ways, he was also a late order finisher batting at no. 7 for India.
While India had a lot of class top order batsmen in that era, Kapil was the only batsman who had the abilities to strike the ball long and clean batting down the order.
Kapil won man of the match awards thrice in Australia with his contributions with bat and ball.
5. Ravi Shastri (3 times)
Ravi Shastri was an opening batsman for India for a decent period of time, but apart from his batting credentials, he was a very effective left-arm spinner as well who used to keep the opposition batsmen at bay in the middle phase of the innings.
Shastri was the player of the tournament when India won the World Championship of cricket in Australia in 1985. He won a couple of man of the match awards through that tournament. In totality, the current Indian coach has got three man of the match awards to his name in the matches down under.
