Expect a fair share when you land in Australia, Symonds warns Team India

However, for Dhoni’s team, the real test will begin once they land in Australia later this year for four Tests and the VB series.

After the victory in Nagpur, both Ricky Ponting and Andrew Symonds talked about how the Aussies would return home and keenly await the arrival of Indians. A lot, they insist, has happened in this series that was particularly unnecessary and as far as hospitality was concerned, the Indians will receive their fair share, they guaranteed.

“We do not get the best of hospitality wherever we go. But that’s a part of the game and it is fine as long as you play the way it should be and move on,” says Symonds, with a sly smile to add to the obvious jubilation of scoring a scintillating hundred and helping his side win.

Ponting, too, is stretching himself in anticipation. “It’ll be a tough series, I am sure, and we’re looking forward to it,” he says.

The Australian captain had nothing to say except praise his bunch the way it delivered in Sunday’s match. To agree that the Nagpur encounter was the closest that the two teams came in terms of competition, and still manage to win as convincingly as they did, showed that this Aussie side is not willing to yield an inch.

India may not have the Australian series in mind just as yet, especially with Pakistan to go first. Dhoni has already started talking about how his team needs to do better than what it did against Australia. “Precisely, we need to bat and bowl well. That’s what we did in Chandigarh and won. But we have failed to do that in other matches and it is something we need to improve on,” the Indian captain says.

Touring Australia, nevertheless, will be a tough affair. To be precise, the trio of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly will not get any younger than they are and the likes of Sreesanth and Harbhajan Singh will have to deliver with the ball as much as they do verbally. “The team needs to get better in several departments,” adds Dhoni, and the most important of them would be to get tougher mentally.

On Sunday, at the Vidarbha Cricket Association (VCA) Stadium here, the Indians came as close as they could in chasing an Australian total — in excess of 300 runs.

To note, in hindsight, that if not for Tendulkar and Ganguly at the top of the order, the rest of the team managed only 159 runs, particularly on the flattest of tracks with seven batsmen in the team, is disheartening.

In Australia, it will get only tougher. The sooner Dhoni & Co recuperate from this disappointment, the better it will be for Team India.