With a few rounds of Sheffield Shield preceding the all-important Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Australia's emerging young batter, Marnus Labuschagne, said getting some first-class cricket under their belt will prove to be a massive advantage for the hosts against the Indians. 

Labuschagne made two fantastic hundreds for Queensland in the build-up to the ongoing ODI series where he has played his part in Australia being 2-0 ahead of the visitors. 

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The Indian team, on the other hand, haven't played any red-ball cricket since the Test matches in New Zealand in March and will only have two three-day warm-up matches to get into the groove. 

"It definitely helps to have a few games under your belt just to get the pace and the timing of the game from T20s to one-dayers to four-day cricket," Labuschagne replied to a query from PTI during a virtual media interaction facilitated by series' official broadcaster Sony on Sunday (November 29). 

"But a lot of these (Indian) players we're talking about, they've been doing it for a long time, they're not new to the changes of format. I'd be surprised if they didn't shift back into gear very quickly." 

"I will say that it's a slight advantage, four out of our top six have been playing Shield cricket and got that rhythm as a batting group," he added. 

The 26-year-old then spoke about the excellent form which David Warner and Steve Smith have looked in during the one-dayers so far, especially Smith who has made two back to back tons at the SCG. 

Both the experienced batsmen weren't there when Australia last hosted India and conceded the Test series to arch-rivals for the very first time on home shores. 

"Cricket's a massive confidence game and even though it's a different format, it still gives you a lot of confidence when you're scoring runs consistently and the way Steve and Davey are batting currently, I've got no doubt they'll be able to transfer that into the Test summer," said Labuschagne. 

"But right now there's still a lot of games to be played before that, we've just got to make sure we finish this one-day series well and then straight into the T20s where we start really well."

The Test series begins on December 17 in Adelaide.