Cricket: Australia to send advance party to India

Australia will send eight players to India to help acclimatise to the playing conditions ahead of the Test series.

SYDNEY: Australia will send an advance party of eight players to India this week to help acclimatise to the playing conditions ahead of the four-Test series later this month, according to Cricket Australia.

Chief selector John Inverarity said the squad would travel to India in three separate groups catering for playing commitments in the current one-day series at home against the West Indies which ends next week.

“It is planned to have Jackson Bird, Ed Cowan, Moises Henriques, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, James Pattinson, Peter Siddle and Steve Smith travel to India on Thursday (February 7),” said Inverarity.

Australia, who have lost five of their last seven Tests in India and have not won a series there since 2004, have two warm-up games in Chennai ahead of the opening Test in the same city on February 22-26.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 5^th, 2013.