India attack shaping up well for Australia series - Bangar

Having sewn up the ongoing series with Sri Lanka emphatically, India have begun to look ahead to the challenges that loom away from home, in the next few months. India had treated this five-match series as an opportunity to test their depth, and those experiments have produced encouraging results, particularly on the seam-bowling front, batting coach Sanjay Bangar said.

India leave for Australia shortly after this series ends, and will begin their first warm-up match in Adelaide, on the 24th. Following the four-Test series, India will remain in Australia and New Zealand for an ODI tri-series, and then the World Cup.

"There have been a lot of positives that have emerged," Bangar said. "Earlier we were thinking that there weren't many spinners around, and here you see there are already four or five who are in contention."

Akshar Patel is perhaps chief among those contenders, having taken nine wickets at 17.11 so far in the series, but another young bowler has been even more impressive. Quick Umesh Yadav is the series' lead wicket-taker, with 10 scalps at 16.90. Umesh has been part of India's attack through the series, partly because Bhuvneshhwar Kumar was rested, and Mohit Sharma and Mohammed Shami were unavailable through injury.

"Umesh has been a big plus, and he's improved a lot as the matches have progressed," Bangar said. "He's got more control and he's giving us a lot of wickets in the initial overs, which is so crucial.

"As you can see a lot of rotation is happening. Somebody who has been worked over in the past - like a Bhuvi - has got rest. Shami has got rest. The rotation policy has been followed and that is with the intention that we have an all-fit pace attack in Australia."

India have also pre-tweaked their batting strategy with an eye to Australian conditions, Bangar said. The hosts have departed from more familiar tactics in India, by seeking to conserve wickets against the two new balls. They average 4.5 runs an over inside the mandatory Powerplay this series. Despite this, they have mounted totals of 363 and 404 on the two occasions they have batted first.

"Definitely we would like to keep as many wickets in hand as possible going into the latter half of the innings. That is a conscious effort, and especially with two new balls, and the conditions that we expect in Australia, it is going to be vital to have as many wickets in hand as possible for the later half of the innings.

"The reason that we have done so well in the matches since the England tour is that our batsmen have managed to go onto a big score. Seven hundreds already we've seen being scored, and they're all from different batsmen. In a way it's great that they're all chipping in with those contributions when the team requires it."

With the first Test against Australia set to begin on December 4, Bangar also said India's Test specialists had already begun their training.