No warm-up games ahead of India tour in 2027: McDonald

Brisbane, Aug 5 (IANS) Head coach Andrew McDonald has revealed that Australia have decided against playing a warm-up match ahead of their 2027 Border-Gavaskar Trophy tour of India, adding that their focus will be on a dedicated pre-series training camp to prepare for turning conditions.

The five-match Test series will start on January 21 in Nagpur and end on March 3 in Ahmedabad. It will mark Australia’s longest tour of India in 50 years. With the marquee series commencing less than two weeks after the conclusion of their home Test series against New Zealand, Australia face a tight preparation timeline.

Australia previously used a similar method head of the 2023 tour of India by having a camp in Alur on the outskirts of Bengaluru, as well as traveling to Dubai prior to their two-Test tour of Sri Lanka. In Alur, they got local Indian bowlers like Baroda off-spinner Mahesh Pithiya to replicate the angle of former off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin.

“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. 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.

“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. 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.

“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 told cricket.com.au on Wednesday.

Test fringe players like Matthew Kuhnemann, Todd Murphy, Cooper Connolly, Peter Handscomb, and Matthew Renshaw are among those in consideration for the tour as Australia seek their first Test series victory on Indian soil since 2004.

While Australia are not playing tour games in India, McDonald confirmed they plan to play warm-up fixtures ahead of their three-game Test series in South Africa and the 2027 Ashes in England, provided they do not qualify for the World Test Championship final.

“We don’t always take the opportunity to play warm-up games or first-class games on the entry, and that’s probably because we haven’t traditionally had the space and time, and also we’ve had an experienced group.

“Some players are going to be coming out of IPL, some players are going to be coming out of April, May in Australia preparing back here, some might be in county cricket, so we’re going to have players at all different stages of prep.

“Our intention is that we qualify for the World Test Championship final, but there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge there. To have that game available to finish off the prep for players, if we weren’t to make the WTC final, would be important.

“We’re not against practice games as long as they can fit in. That’s always the hard part with a schedule that that does get compressed. We feel like a game on a Test venue against a quality opponent potentially is the best thing for that (UK) tour,” he added.

–IANS

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