Captain Anil Kumble and his teammates on Monday left for Australia, hoping to create history by becoming the first Indian team to conquer the Aussies in their own backyard.
Kumble and his men left by a morning flight to Singapore en-route to Melbourne, firm in their belief that they have the wherewithal to bring to the knees the mighty Australians on high-bouncing pitches against fiery speedsters.
"It's a tough challenge to play Australia in Australia but we are ready for the challenge. We have the potential and players to win the series in Australia," Kumble said in Mumbai about the high-profile contest against Ricky Ponting's men.
"We had a very good series against Pakistan. We won the one-day as well as the Test series which is a confidence booster for doing well in Australia," proclaimed Kumble, who will give way to one-day captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and return home at the end of the four-Test rubber.
"We have quality in the side. We have enough experience of Australian conditions to adjust to them which is a pre-requisite of international cricket. The potential in the side and the players' experience will help," he said, putting the onus on the array of quality batsmen in the team to set up the victory.
"We have people in the middle order with over 30,000 runs and I think we will be able to handle whatever comes our way. I have been saying that if we have the runs on the board, our bowlers have the ability to get the wickets," Kumble said.
"For some of the senior players, it's probably their last tour to Australia. It's important we go out there and do well," said Kumble, egging on himself and the Golden Quartet of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman to make another effort to conquer what for India is one of the two final frontiers they are yet to conquer at the Test level.
India have won rubbers in all Test playing countries barring Australia and South Africa although they have come agonizingly close to doing so in the first decade of the new millennium.
Kumble and the rest of the players, especially the Fabulous Four, know from past experience how important it is to adjust to the conditions in Australia, far different from the slow and low pitches in the Indian sub-continent.
A major handicap for the Indians is absence of enough pre-series warm-up games. They are to play only one game, against Victoria XI at Melbourne's Junction Oval prior to taking on Australia in the traditional Boxing Day on December 26 Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
That will be followed by matches at the Sydney Cricket Ground (January 2-6, 2008), Perth's WACA ground (January 16-20), after a second warm-up tie at Canberra, and Adelaide Oval (January 24-28).
The Indian squad, bolstered by limited overs specialists yet to be decided by the selectors, will then take on the hosts in a lone Twenty20 International tie in Melbourne on February 1 before engaging Australia and Sri Lanka in an ODI tri-series from February 3-March 7.
"We have played lot of cricket and have 10 days before the first Test to get adjusted," Kumble said, brushing aside any thoughts of insufficient preparation time before the battle for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
For the record, India visited Australia for the first time in 1947-48 to take on the all-conquering team led by Donald Bradman.
Subsequent visits for full Test tours followed in 1967-68, 1977-78, 1980-81, 1985-86, 1991-92, 1999-2000 and 2003-04.
They failed to win a single Test while losing the first two rubbers by 0-4 margins, lost the rubber in the deciding Test to lose the series 2-3 in 1977-78, drew 1-1 and 0-0 in the two three-Test rubbers played in the 1980s, lost 0-4 in a five-Test rubber in 1991 and 0-3 in the next three-match series before drawing 1-1 in their last four-match rubber played Down Under.
India also visited Australia in 1985 for the World Championship of one-day cricket as World Cup champions and won the crown against all expectations as well as made a second visit to play the World Cup in 1992 jointly hosted by Australia and New Zealand.
The team is accompanied by other support staff, including bowling and fielding coaches, Venkatesh Prasad and Robin Singh, physio John Gloster and trainer Gregory King.
Newly appointed national team coach Gary Kirsten is expected to join the team after the second Test as a consultant for an unspecified period of time till he assumes office as full-time coach on March 1, 2008.
Test squad: Anil Kumble (captain), Mahendra Singh Dhoni (vice-captain and w/k), Wasim Jaffer, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, V V S Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Dinesh Karthik, Irfan Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, R P Singh, Ishant Sharma and Pankaj Singh.
Assistant coach: Lalchand Rajput.
Cricket manager: Chetan Chauhan, Administrative manager: Dr M V Sridhar
