The mindset, tactics, and strategies that Australia will employ during their four-Test tour of India in February and March have been revealed in a documentary series, as Pat Cummins' team hopes to end their 19-year series losing streak in India.
According to a report in the Australian media on Wednesday, the docu-series 'The Test' season two, which premieres on Amazon's Prime Video this week, follows the highs and lows of Pat Cummins' team from the time of his appointment as skipper just weeks before last summer's Ashes campaign, through their subsequent tours of Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Season two of Amazon Original's 'The Test' premieres on Prime Video this week.
Australia will play four Tests and three One-Day Internationals in India in February and March.
In early February, Australia will depart for India. The first Test will be held in Nagpur from February 9-13, followed by the second in New Delhi from February 17-21. The first Test will be held in Dharamshala from March 1-5, followed by the fourth in Ahmedabad from March 9-13. The three-match One-Day International series will begin on March 17 at Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium.
"The four-part documentary provides some revealing insights into the myriad characters that comprise the current team, including Cummins' passion for books, spinner Nathan Lyon's ambition to master Auslan sign language, and even Marnus Labuschagne's peculiar culinary predilection."
According to the series, Australia's strategy for the Tests in India is to keep chipping away, believing their plans will work until a crack appears in the opposition.
The strategy worked in Pakistan, where Australia won the three-match series 1-0 after the first two games were tied on flat pitches. The strategy had also worked in the first Test of their 1-1 tie in Sri Lanka.
Though the pitches in India are expected to be more spin-friendly, Australia is sticking with the same strategy in the hope that it will help them conquer the country that ex-skipper Steve Waugh once described as the Test team's final frontier, while former coach Justin Langer dubbed it "Everest" when he took over in 2018.
Steve Waugh's team failed to conquer the Final Frontier in 2001, but Adam Gilchrist and Ricky Ponting led Australia to a Test series victory in India in 2004. They've had more setbacks in India since then.
According to cricket.com.au, Cummins stated following Australia's 2-0 series win over South Africa that he believes his team covers all contingencies likely to be faced on the subcontinent and has as good a chance as any of his predecessors of regaining the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
Cummins cites the teams of the 1990s and early 2000s, which included Waugh and Langer on a regular basis and conquered every challenge, as the benchmark his men strive for.
"They won in India, they won in England," Cummins says in 'The Test,' noting that Australia will follow their India tour with a five-Test Ashes series in the United Kingdom in June and July. That Test team could adapt no matter where they (went) in the world. That is what the gold standard is. "That's what you want," he said, according to the report.
One of the keys to transferring their successful record at home (where they have not been defeated in a Test for two summers) to the subcontinent (where, prior to the Pakistan victory, they had won only two series from eight attempts dating back to 2006) is abandoning the approach that works here.