CHENNAI: Pat Cummins-led Australian team will not play any practice matches before the next year's Border Gavaskar Trophy in India confirmed their head coach Andrew McDonald on Wednesday. Instead, they will be looking to have a short preparatory camp in similar conditions to get ready for the all-important five-Test series that begins in Nagpur on January 21.
"We feel as though we've got enough time to immerse ourselves in those conditions. We won't be taking on a practice game. It'll just be more around the location," McDonald told Cricket.com.au.
We've 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 we're just working through what that would look like in terms of how we then manage the individuals." This is in contrast to their approach in South Africa or England where they will play tour games before the series begins.
The last time they toured India in 2023, Australia had a preparatory camp in Bengaluru before the series which they lost 2-1 with the solitary win coming a rank turner in Indore. This time, the tourney will move from Nagpur to Chennai to Guwahati and Ranchi before culminating in Ahmedabad.
"Ultimately, if you can have a dedicated venue that you're 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, that's ideally what you want," he said. "You case those locations - you want a connection in terms of conditions and climate. We believe we'll get that right in terms of where we go, it just hasn't been confirmed yet."
The head coach felt the players who are shortlisted for India series but not in contention for the home series against New Zealand will be spending time getting ready for India challenge instead of playing in Big Bash League. 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.
"A lot of that would happen on the back of the four Tests against New Zealand, seeing where players are at. We'll potentially have some different players with different skill sets that we believe can perform in India, so it won't necessarily be the squad that finishes the Test series (against NZ that then heads to India). There'll be some players that we need to put a little bit more prep into, and that'll start in Australia also, balancing out Big Bash commitments and things like that," he said.