Melbourne, Aug 7:
Australia head coach Andrew McDonald has revealed that his team will not play any practice match before its high-profile Border Gavaskar Trophy away Test series against India next year as a short preparatory camp in conditions similar to the sub-continent would be more useful.
The much-anticipated five-Test series is scheduled to start on January 21 in Nagpur.
âWe feel as though weâve got enough time to immerse ourselves in those conditions. We wonât be taking on a practice game. Itâll just be more around the location,â McDonald told âcricket.com.au.â âWeâve got a couple of options there. We have gone to the UAE previously and we have also gone into India last time into Bangalore, so weâre just working through what that would look like in terms of how we then manage the individuals.â
The Australians will, however, play tour games against local sides during upcoming assignments against South Africa and England.
The series against India would last for over a month with games spread across Nagpur, Chennai, Guwahati, and Ranchi before the finale in Ahmedabad.
During their 2023 tour of India, the Aussies had held a camp in Alur near Bengaluru to prepare for the series.
âUltimately, if you can have a dedicated venue that youâre able to use and replicate as close to the conditions that you believe you may get in the first Test match or throughout a Test series, thatâs ideally what you want,â he said.
âYou case those locations â you want a connection in terms of conditions and climate.
We believe weâll get that right in terms of where we go, it just hasnât been confirmed yet.â McDonald said players shortlisted for the India series but not in contention for the preceding home rubber against New zealand would be expected to prepare for the tour instead of playing in the Big Bash at that time.
Matthew Kuhnemann, Todd Murphy, Cooper Connolly, Peter Handscomb and Matthew Renshaw are some of the names in contention to play in India, according to the report.
âA lot of that would happen on the back of the four Tests against New Zealand, seeing where players are at. Weâll potentially have some different players with different skill sets that we believe can perform in India, so it wonât necessarily be the squad that finishes the Test series (against NZ that then heads to India).
âThereâll be some players that we need to put a little bit more prep into, and thatâll start in Australia also, balancing out Big Bash commitments and things like that,â he said.
Australian haver not won a Test series in India since 2004-05 season.