KEY POINTS:
HYDERABAD, India - Here we go again.
Little more than nine months after Bollyline, monkey-gate and all the other assorted dramas that beset India's tour down under, Australia is gearing for the return bout on the subcontinent.
From Thursday, the eyes of the cricket world turn to test
venues Bangalore, Mohali, Delhi and Nagpur as cricket's on-field power battles to maintain that mantle against the nation now undisputed as its major off-field force.
For the Australians, their standing as the world's No 1 team will not receive a more searching test than this one, something captain Ricky Ponting is acutely aware of.
Ponting, of course, has barely made a run in India, averaging little more than 12 across four previous test visits, the first for a one-off match in Delhi in 1996.
His personal progress over the next five weeks will tell much about the team, for without a strong supply of runs the Australians will surely be defeated.
Matthew Hayden, Michael Clarke and Simon Katich all have fond memories of batting in India, and in the case of Hayden and Clarke it was the place where they made their names as test performers.
But the fulcrum of the Australian order is most likely to be a first time test tourist, Mike Hussey, whose sure-handed style will need to mould adeptly to changing match situations from No 4 in the order.
Beneath Hussey and Clarke will be Shane Watson, capable of a long innings but like Ponting vulnerable to spin early in his stay at the crease.
Should the Australians put a score on the board, their attack will rely almost exclusively on the quicks.
Brett Lee, Stuart Clark, Mitchell Johnson, Watson and perhaps Peter Siddle or Doug Bollinger are an unquestionably strong pace battery, but on Indian pitches more likely to be slow and spinning than fast and seaming only Clark, with his unrelenting straightness and ability to extract variable bounce, looks a sure bet for success.
In terms of spin, it is not so much that the Australian cupboard is bare, more that there is no cupboard.
Young off spinner Jason Krejza was dismantled by the Indian Board President's XI in the tourists' only serious warm-up, and injured Bryce McGain's replacement Cameron White remains an embryonic leggie at best.
Among the batsmen, Michael Clarke can deliver presentable slow left-arm given the right conditions, but it is too much to expect him to carry the spin standard alone.
Most likely is a combination of Clarke and White delivering a few "gap" overs while the quicks are rested, with the touring side needing to take every possible opportunity in the field.
"It's almost like if you lose that intense focus here the opportunity is gone," Hayden said of cricket in India.
"Even looking from where you are in the slips cordon, you're so close. I was measuring where I was standing in slips to Brett, I was seven yards closer to the bat than what I'd normally be in Australia.
"Those kinds of things are just really different here and you do have to get your mind into that area where you have to have a strategy to deal with it."
India are in the position of knowing far more about the capabilities of their players than the Australians do about theirs.
The home side will be stacked with old heads - and possibly tired legs - for a series that shapes as the top level swansong for at least one or two of the men who have carried the team for a decade or more.
Former captain Sourav Ganguly was probably the last man picked in the 15-man squad for the first two tests, and he will most likely bid farewell to home fans from No 6 in the batting order.
Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and skipper Anil Kumble are all far nearer the end than the beginning, but each is good enough to summon one final effort to vanquish the Australians.
It cannot be forgotten that there is enough Harbhajan Singh versus Australia material to produce the pilot for a soap opera, but the absence of his chief antagonist, Andrew Symonds, may allow the series to be fought without a little of the ill-feeling that bedevilled last summer.
A lot has been made of which Australian names are no longer around and which Indian ones still are.
Harbhajan, however, reckons genuine belief will always transcend the teamsheet.
"Even when they had all these players, we always believed we could beat them - the faces don't matter, the names don't matter," he said.
"We always had self-belief, and more recently, we've proved that belief.
"We haven't looked at the faces or records and been intimidated, we've just gone into series wanting to beat them."
It is an attitude the Australians would do well to adopt over the next four tests.
AUSTRALIA v INDIA
Tests played: 72
Australia: 34
India: 16
Drawn: 21
Tied: 1
In India
Tests played: 36
Australia: 12
India: 11
Drawn: 12
Tied: 1
- AAP
