Australia to prepare in UAE for India tour

With India becoming one of the toughest destinations for every touring team, Australia are set to embark on a short tour to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to prepare for their four-Test series in India. Pat Howard, the Cricket Australia’s team performance chief, has confirmed about the development to Fairfax Media on Monday (January 2).

While the dates haven’t been confirmed yet, Australia will practice in the International Cricket Council’s Academy. “India is not going to be the same everywhere,” Howard said. “What they can do in Dubai is do a lot of different preparation with different types of pitches.

“The ICC have done a really good job where they’ll have different pitches of the cities… so it’s not just spin pitches, there are different type. We cannot copy what we are going to get. It’s all about the mindset that we’re going to adapt. We can’t get practice against (Ravichandran) Ashwin and (Ravindra) Jadeja either.”

Australia have not won a Test in India since 2011 and will be keen to turn things around in 2017. They’ll play the first Test in Pune from February 23 before heading to Bengaluru, Ranchi and Dharamsala for the remaining Tests.