Date:28/07/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/07/28/stories/2004072808741900.htm

Sport - Cricket

`It will be a learning experience'

By Our Sports Reporter

BANGALORE, JULY 27. It may not exactly be a dress rehearsal before the Australians tour India in October but their Academy team does have a few goals. And the Commonwealth Bank Centre of Excellence Australian Cricket Academy's head coach Bennett King stated the obvious when he said, "the goals are for gaining experience and some information on Indian conditions especially since we consider India as an emerging cricket power."

The Australian Academy team led by Adam Voges arrived here late on Monday night and the players got down to business immediately here on Tuesday morning with a practise session at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. The visitors are scheduled to play three two-day matches against the KSCA XI and one two-day match against the NCA Under-19 squad.

Coach King aired his views to the media at the conclusion of the morning session. "We are looking at preparing our boys to play in all sorts of conditions. And the Indian conditions are vastly different from what we have back home. Some of our players have had a taste of first class cricket. And so this time we came here with a little more experienced side. Last year when we toured India, we learnt a lot but we were a bit disappointed with a couple of games but it was a good experience for all the guys," King said.

The Australian senior squad may put the fear of God in most teams but the junior crop plummeted the depths by losing even to teams like Zimbabwe and Bangladesh in the Under-19 World Cup at Dhaka.

"Excuses are not part of our cricket. We played a couple of bad games and got our fundamentals wrong even though we were not in a particularly strong group. Most of our players were from the under-17 batch and lacked experience in sub-continental conditions. But on a positive side some of those guys can break into the National team and that is a sign of our reserve strength," King said.

The team:

Adam Voges (captain), Tom Plant, Craig Simmons, Travis Birt, Ryan Broad, Jason Kreja, Matthew Harrison, Tim Paine (wicket-keeper), Daniel Cullen, Brad Knowles, Darren McNees, Doug Bollinger and Brendan Drew. Messrs Bennett King (head coach), David Moore (senior coach) and Kevin Simms (physiotherapist).