The Australian cricket team will spend time in the United Arab Emirates ahead of next month’s tour of India in an attempt to reverse their dismal fortunes on the subcontinent. The Test squad will train on pitches made from Pakistani soil at the state-of-the-art ICC Academy in Dubai in a bid to adapt to Asian conditions.

The move will prevent a repeat of the side’s unhelpful preparation for the ill-fated Sri Lanka Test series mid-last year. Sri Lankan curators prepared a green-tinged pitch for Australia’s single tour match before providing traditional spin-friendly Asian strips in the home side’s 3-0 series victory.

“What they can do in Dubai is do a lot of different preparation with different types of pitches,” Cricket Australia team performance boss Pat Howard told Fairfax Media. “The ICC have done a really good job where they’ll have different pitches of the cities.”

Australia have not won a Test match on the subcontinent since 2011 and head into the four Test series against world No1 India having not beaten them at home since 2004. They were whitewashed 4-0 in their last tour in early 2013 and meet an Indian side coming off a undefeated series victory over England, where spinners Ravi Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja starred.

Australia’s lead-up to the 2017 series’ first Test in Pune starting 23 February does not include a warm-up match in India. Instead, they play limited overs series against Pakistan, New Zealand and Sri Lanka over the next seven weeks having secured an unassailable 2-0 series lead over Pakistan ahead of the third Test in Sydney beginning on Tuesday.



