Barely four days after a hectic series against the West Indies, India begin their tour of Australia with a two-day warm-up game against CA Chairman's XI here on Thursday with focus on acclimatising to conditions ahead of the gruelling Test series beginning later this month.
India are high on confidence after their 2-0 and 4-1 wins in the Test and ODI series against the West Indies and they would straightaway get down to their task of getting a feel of Australian conditions which would be much different from what they had faced at home.
Sniffing India's best chance to beat a weakened and demoralised Australian side at their own backyard, captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni had stressed upon the importance of acclimatising to the conditions as fast as possible in the 12 days ahead of first Test starting in Melbourne on December 26.
The Indian Cricket Board had also sent seven players, including the trio of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and V V S Laxman five days in advance to train in Melbourne, to prepare for what would certainly be their last tour of Australia.
The remaining players, including Dhoni and coach Duncan Fletcher landed in Australia on Tuesday night and straightaway left for Canberra for the first warm-up game on Thursday.
It is to be seen if India will roll out a star-studded team for the first warm-up match at Manuka Oval, given that there is a three-day game starting on Monday against another CA Chairman's XI boasting of Australian players like David Warner, Usman Khawaja and Phil Hughes.
With the tour coming in four years after the acrimonious series in 2008, Dhoni had indicated that the team management would want to use the 12 days before the first Test as much as possible and in that case he would want to use as many players as possible from his 17-man squad.