Australia will skip all practice matches ahead of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in India next year, head coach Andrew McDonald confirmed. Instead, the visitors will focus on targeted training camps and managing player freshness.
McDonald cited that tailored training camps allow the squad to mimic subcontinental conditions far more accurately than unpredictable local tour games.
The highly-anticipated five-match Test series is scheduled to get underway on January 21 in Nagpur.
"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."
Australia’s Test tour of India would last for over a month with games spread across Nagpur, Chennai, Guwahati, Ranchi, and Ahmedabad.
During their last visit to India in 2023, the Aussies had staged a camp in Alur near Bengaluru to fine-tune their preparations.
"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," the coach 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."
McDonald stated that select red-ball specialists not involved in the home New Zealand series will pivot early toward sub-continent specific training rather than featuring in the Big Bash League.
Matthew Kuhnemann, Todd Murphy, Cooper Connolly, Peter Handscomb and Matthew Renshaw are some of the names in reckoning to play in India, as per 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," McDonald said.
This tour remains a "final frontier" for veteran core members like Pat Cummins, Steve Smith, and Mitchell Starc, who have never won a Test series in India.
(With PTI Inputs)
