Ashes rivals provide Aussies' India blueprint

Should Australia defy history and logic and convert their hard-won early advantage into an historic series win in India, they might be obliged to lay a thank you garland at the feet of their arch-rivals England.

In a stringent attempt to overturn more than a decade of Test match failures, and a similarly barren run at all Asian venues since 2011, Australia’s cricket hierarchy turned to history’s most recent example of a visiting team celebrating success on the subcontinent.

And the blueprint provided by England’s 2012 campaign, led by recently replaced skipper Alastair Cook and then-coach Andy Flower, has been unapologetically lifted and transposed upon Australia’s strategy five years later.

It began almost a year ago when former Victoria and Tasmania fast bowler David Saker, who served as England’s bowling guru from 2010 to 2015, was appointed to the role of Bupa Support Team Assistant Coach.

With his pivotal role in England’s breakthrough 2-1 win of their four-Test series of 2012 – the only time India has been defeated at home this century since Australia’s previous triumph in 2004 - privately cited as a key criterion for that decision.

Image Id: 84818C2A3F0B4591BDB0334DB508EF18 Image Caption: Saker and Cook on England's 2012 India tour // Getty

Then there was the involvement of ex-England Test spinner Monty Panesar, who took 17 wickets at 26.82 in those four Tests with his left-arm orthodox and formed a vital partnership with off-spinner Graeme Swann.

Panesar was in Australia during the recent home summer, and was enlisted to work closely with fellow left-arm spinner Steve O’Keefe on the challenges and the nuances of bowling on a variety of India Test pitches.

O’Keefe was player of the match in Australia’s thumping first Test win at Pune last week, returning the extraordinary figures of 12-70 which were the best by a visiting spinner for a match on Indian soil.

Perhaps the most crucial learning from England’s unexpected, and to date unrepeated Test triumph of five years ago has been the decision to duplicate the pre-series training regime that Cook’s men underwent in Dubai prior to arriving in India in October, 2012.

England spent three days at the International Cricket Council’s global academy in Dubai en route to India, taking advantage of the full array of training facilities set up under its former director (and ex-Australian academy boss and former national selection panel chair) Rod Marsh, which includes as many as 30 outdoor pitches constructed from disparate soil profiles around the world.

Cricket Australia officials looked at that idea and saw that it represented an ideal opportunity to not only exercise some autonomy over their preparation, but to conduct it in the comparative cool of the late Emirati winter rather than the steamy heat of India.

Which, in turn, meant they were able to maximise the number and variety of training sessions they scheduled as well as tailor them to the specific needs they anticipated to find once they landed in Mumbai.

Therefore enabling to cover as many contingencies as they were able to foresee.

“Having that week in Dubai, and having freshened up as well after our summer was fantastic for me and my preparation,” Australia vice-captain David Warner said today ahead of his team’s first training session at Bengaluru’s M Chinnaswamy Stadium.

“And I know the guys that went to Dubai early, they were all talking about how good it was to prepare over there and get their mind set and get the miles in the legs to come here.

“We’re truly grateful for that opportunity.

“Sometimes when you come here to these countries, in these conditions you probably don’t have as much preparation because as a player sometimes when you’re in this heat you fatigue quite fast.

“And the next day, when you’re not used to it, you can’t back up.

“So being in Dubai with the temperature at 24, 25 degrees the guys could back up day-in, day-out.

“We were fortunate for that, and the boys are prepared and have prepared well.”

Quick Single: Renshaw thriving on raw approach: Warner

It means that Steve Smith’s new-look squad has begun their India odyssey in a vastly different frame of mind, and with a more finely honed set of skills, than the team that arrived in Sri Lanka last July.

And was greeted by well-grassed pitches and an opposition almost bereft of spin bowlers for the sole warm-up match at Colombo, before finding themselves at the mercy of Sri Lanka’s three-pronged spin attack in dry, bare Test pitches where they plummeted to a humiliating 0-3 defeat.

Certainly, the pitch on which the first Test at Pune was fought out – rated as ‘poor’ by ICC match referee Chris Broad in his report to which India officials now have 14 days to respond – was a contrast to the traditional batter-friendly deck for Australia’s tour game in Mumbai less than a week earlier.

Quick Single: ICC rate first Test pitch as 'poor'

But Warner said the preparation the Australians have put in, coupled with the lessons hard learned from recent failed Test visits to Asia gave them the confidence and the competence to counter the demons in the Pune surface.

Something India, undefeated across 19 previous Test matches on home soil heading into that match, were unable to do as they were twice bowled out for barely 100 and fell to the third-heaviest defeat (in terms of runs) on their own turf.

“Having looked at the (Pune) wicket, it was probably going to be a wicket where you couldn’t really play your shots,” Warner said today in describing how he and opening partner Matthew Renshaw were forced to quickly adapt their games.

“You were going to have to sweep off length, not just off line.

“So for me it was about playing with soft hands and figuring out where am I going to get the ones to rotate strike and the boundaries will hopefully come by me putting pressure on their bowlers with my defence. 

“There’s a couple of instances where I was a little bit in my mind thinking, I can play a big shot, but I reined it in and talked to myself.

“It’s good with Matt out there, to talk to him about how I thought they were going to get us out and we sort of reined it in together, and when we saw the opportunity to try and pounce on one or two loose balls we did that.

“They (India) are the number one Test team in the world, and they’re a great bunch of players and we know what to expect. 

“We saw all the tricks in Pune - their bowling changes, their fielding placements, the way they play as a number one team so for us to beat them on home soil was awesome and fantastic.

“But we know they’re going to come back harder and we’ve just got to adapt to the conditions again with what we face here in (Bengaluru).”

Test Squads

India (for first two Tests): Virat Kohli (c), Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Ravichandaran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Ishant Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Karun Nair, Jayant Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Abhinav Mukund, Hardik Pandya.

Australia: Steve Smith (c), David Warner (vc), Ashton Agar, Jackson Bird, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Shaun Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Stephen O'Keefe, Matthew Renshaw, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson, Matthew Wade

Australia's schedule in India

Feb 23-27, First Test, Pune

Mar 4-8, Second Test, Bengaluru

Mar 16-20, Third Test, Ranchi

Mar 25-29, Fourth Test, Dharamsala