India sneak the favourites tag for Australia Tests

Australia are not used to being anything less than outright favourites going into a home Test summer. But, despite the fillip of a rare T20I win over India at the Gabba on Wednesday, they are about to embark on a marquee Test series with a sense of the underdog about them.

Shane Warne, for one, reckons India are favourites for the four-match Test series that begins at Adelaide on December 6, and the odds-setters at Bet365 don't think that assessment is far off the mark.

Currently Australia are 7/5 to win the series, with India breathing down their necks on 5/4 and the draw a slightly more distant 7/2.

Perhaps curiously, given that they haven't won an Ashes series in England since 2001, Australia are actually more fancied, at 6/5, to beat England in England next summer - although England are themselves favourites for that series at 11/10.

Part of the reason for that pricing, of course, could centre around the availability of their two star batsmen, Steve Smith and David Warner, whose year-long bans were last week upheld by Cricket Australia, meaning they will miss the India series, but will be gunning for their comebacks by the time the English summer begins.