Brisbane to be venue for NZ's Indian tour preparation

New Zealand will be spending eight days in Brisbane as build-up to their tour of India. The side, which is expected to be named later this week, will have from September 10-18 in Brisbane before returning home for a few days. They will fly out for India on September 21.

Team manager Lindsay Crocker returned today from a trip to England, where he and acting coach Ashley Ross met with new team coach John Bracewell and captain Stephen Fleming, and India where Crocker met with Jagmohan Dalmiya and the Board of Control for Cricket in India's operations manager Kunal Ghosh.

He said there were several options open to the side for their practice but the closeness of Brisbane, and contacts he had with Queensland Cricket from his time as chief executive for Auckland Cricket, made it a good connection.

"We need to get outside and stretch the bowlers' legs while also building up their workloads. It will also give the batsmen a chance to bat in outside conditions," Crocker said. "We will also work with the Queensland Bulls squad while at Allan Border Field."

It wouldn't necessarily be all the touring party who went, he said, as someone like Fleming or Chris Cairns, who have been playing county cricket in England might prefer the break.

"We did look to going to India earlier but it is still wet in some places there and it was too risky. We will still have 15 days there to acclimatise before the first Test. But in Brisbane the bowlers will be able to come in off their full run-ups and any variations they need to make to the length of their bowling can be worked on during their time in India," Crocker said.

New Zealand were happy with the itinerary for the tour, especially now that Ahmedabad Test had been confirmed. Crocker said his visit was not to inspect venues but to meet with Indian officials and deal with some of the logistics of the tour. It was already apparent to him that there is a great deal of interest in India in the tour.

Australian officials have been looking into the venues for their visit there as part of the tri-series to be played in India and would be assisting New Zealand with information for their games.