While it has been confirmed that the third Test between Australia and India will be held at SCG, the players from both sides will not travel to Sydney on New Year's eve and will stay in Melbourne for a couple of days.

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Confirming the development, Cricket Australia (CA) interim Chief Executive Officer Nick Hockley on Wednesday (December 30) said that the teams will start their training for the third Test in Melbourne and will arrive in Sydney approximately 72 hours before the match.

"Last night's announcement was that we are proceeding to Sydney and we are putting our plans in place to do that safely," Hockley in a virtual press conference, as quoted by ANI.

"The players will be in Melbourne for a few more days training there, before moving to Sydney a couple of days ahead of the Test match," he added.

Cricket Australia on Tuesday (December 29) stated that the Sydney Cricket Ground will remain the host for the third Test despite the impact of recent COVID-19 outbreak in the city.

"As a part of the process we have been working very closely with the Queensland government and also with the health officers so we had very detailed discussions over the last week," said Hockley.

"We had done all through this summer and had a contingency plan in place in Melbourne which gave us the time and opportunity to decide," he further remarked.

Hockley said the CA wanted to give Sydney the best chance of staging the third Test and that is why the final decision was taken after the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne.

"We wanted to give Sydney, the very best chance to able to go ahead and so on. We are taking the best advice from all the stakeholders," he said.

"So it's been a detailed process and we had always said that will make the decision final after the Boxing Day Test and that's the time we needed to act on our all plans."

The third Test is scheduled to be played from January 7 to January 11.

(With ANI inputs)