Australia plan for overseas success

So Australia have won a World Cup they expected to win, and celebrated it with gusto. Now the team's planners are turning immediate attention to earning the tag of greatness - something that cannot be done with victories at home, no matter how many or by how great a margin.

When the chairman of selectors Rod Marsh unveils the touring squads for the West Indies and England, the list of Cricket Australia contracted players and the squad for an Australia A tour of India, they will all be geared towards the objective of much improved overseas performance.

No amount of World Cup winners' beer or champagne can wash away the memories of Ashes defeats in England in 2005, 2009 and 2013, nor that of hidings at the hands of India on the subcontinent in 2013 and Pakistan in the UAE last year. Marsh was a befuddled observer in the stands during the latter three defeats, and has spent as much of his time this summer pondering the best combinations for the West Indies and England as he has on the more immediate challenges of the World Cup.

During the Boxing Day Test, Marsh told ESPNcricinfo how CA and the selectors were extremely eager to ensure that the glow of home victories does not allow the team to take their eyes off the main game of sustained success away from home. In doing so, he acknowledged that this would be a far harder nut to crack.

"The minute we take our eye off the ball with the West Indies for example, the minute we start getting funky with selections or the way we play against the West Indies, you know exactly what's going to happen, you're going to get beaten," Marsh said. "That's not what we want to do going into the Ashes, we want to win every series we play.

"Until such time as we do that, we won't be a great side. We want to get better at playing at home, but we also want to get a hell of a lot better at playing away from home. We've just got to do it if we want to be a great side, and we've got to find a way to do it.

"Whether we have a close look at the players we select and think 'righto, if we go to the subcontinent we've got to find our best players of spin bowling', how do we do that, we've got to find out how many good players of spin bowling we have. And that can be on A tours or can be on replicating conditions at home."

To that end, the A tour selections for India, a tour to take place towards the back end of the Ashes series in England and ahead of a third Test tour of the year, to Bangladesh in October, will take on added importance. Never again does Marsh want an Australian team to look so inept and so shell-shocked by the experience of India as was the team of Michael Clarke and Mickey Arthur in 2013, when their on-field confusion led to the breakdown of the team off the field and the regrettable episode dubbed "Homeworkgate".

Australia's thrilling victory in South Africa following the 2013-14 Ashes whitewash was the most significant overseas success of recent years, but it came in conditions the team of Clarke and Darren Lehmann are most familiar and comfortable. In fact, their loss of the second Test of that series in Port Elizabeth arrived on the slowest of the three surfaces, a reminder of how much work there is to be done on Australia's play in such climes.

The West Indies will provide a useful lead-in to the Ashes, but its conditions will be challenging enough in isolation. The 2012 tour of the Caribbean was punctuated by desperately sluggish surfaces, and a series margin of 2-0 appeared more comfortable than the reality. And though England are presently down on confidence, it will take a performance of consistently high standards to retain the Ashes - survivors of the 2009 series such as Clarke, Shane Watson and Brad Haddin will attest to that.

Expectations for the Test squads include the naming of 16 players for the West Indies and 17 for England, with Ryan Harris to join the tour after being at home in Australia for the birth of his first child. The likes of Glenn Maxwell and Ashton Agar find themselves vying with the Sheffield Shield's most accomplished performers Adam Voges and Fawad Ahmed for inclusion. Maxwell and Agar went to India and England in 2013, and should they find themselves on the plane to the Caribbean will have a chance to show how much they have learned since. Australia's graduation from good to great may well hinge on it.

Possible West Indies/Ashes squad: Michael Clarke (capt), David Warner, Chris Rogers, Steven Smith, Shane Watson, Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Marsh, Brad Haddin, Mitchell Johnson, Ryan Harris (England only), Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon, Ashton Agar/Fawad Ahmed, Peter Siddle/James Faulkner, Peter Nevill, Shaun Marsh.