Ahead of India tour, Aussies to train in ICC’S Dubai academy

SYDNEY: The Australian cricket team will have a preparatory camp at ICC’S state-ofthe-art academy in Dubai ahead of next month’s tour of India in an attempt to reverse its dismal fortunes in the subcontinent.

“India is not going to be the same everywhere. 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 was quoted as saying by Australian media.

Australia have not won a Test in India since 2004, and the camp has been organised to help avoid a repeat of the disastrous tour in 2013 when the tourists were whitewashed 0-4.

The Dubai academy, in which recently departed Australia national selector Rod Marsh took a lead design and development role, has two full-sized floodlit ovals and more than 30 grass pitches constructed on different soils from around the cricket world.

“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,” said Howard.

“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 similar preparations in the United Arab Rmirates ahead of their 2-1 series win in India in 2012, while the West Indies also spent time at the academy before winning the World Twenty20 championship in India last year.

The first Test of the fourmatch series begins in Pune on February 23.