Australia to train in Dubai ahead of India tour
Australia will train at the International Cricket Council (ICC) academy in Dubai ahead of their four-Test tour of India in February. The ICC’s facility has two full-size ovals and 30 pitches created from different soils from around the cricket world.
Australia lost 4-0 on their previous tour of India in 2013, and Sri Lanka had also white-washed them at home last August.
“What they can do in Dubai is do a lot of different preparation with different types of pitches,” Cricket Australia's high-performance general manager Pat Howard told Fairfax Media.
“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 types. 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.”
England had prepared in Dubai in 2012 ahead of their India visit, and won the Test series 2-1. The West Indies had also spent time at the academy before the World Twenty20 in India last year that they won.
The first Test will start in Pune on Feb 23.