Been here, faced it: Oz of ‘04 wiser

The Australians are keen to keep their focus intact for Mission 2004. The debacle of 2001 has been confined to the history books and they ha...

The Australians are keen to keep their focus intact for Mission 2004. The debacle of 2001 has been confined to the history books and they have made admirable progress to mount a fresh challenge.

A clinical 3-0 record over neighbours Pakistan and Sri Lanka over the last two years are indicators of the huge strides the Australians have taken ahead of the arduous Indian tour. Also they have only lost three Tests in the 15 matches they have played in the sub-continent. Interestingly, two of those losses have come against India.

Australia’s stand-in captain Adam Gilchrist and coach John Buchanan arrived in India on early Saturday morning alongwith the rest of the squad from London, knowing this piece statistic just too well.

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Hence going into the Border-Gavaskar Trophy the makeshift first couple of Aussie cricket ‘‘we are better prepared’’ than ever before. ‘A lot of water has flown under the bridge since that series in 2001. We have played a lot of cricket all over the world. The visit to Sri Lanka (earlier this year) is significant. We played the spinners very well there. We are much better prepared mentally and cricketwise,’’ said Gilchrist even as Buchanan looked at the Sri Lanka tour as a ‘‘watershed.’’

Basically doing a makeshift job, Gilchrist, just like the venue of his first dekko, a dischotheque, appeared to be settling into his new role. Promising that he was ‘‘not about to initiate a complete overhaul’’ the 34-year-old insisted there would be a period of continuity with regular interactions with the injured Ricky Ponting.

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