Former Australian World Cup winning coach John Buchanan said India’s performance when the team travels to Australia later this year will depend on how well the Indian players can read and adjust to the conditions.

Conquering Australia in Australia has been tough for teams and India were able to break the drought when they won the Test series in Australia, named the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, in 2018-19 and 2020-21.

The 2024-25 series will also be the first time that the series will be a five Test match affair rather than the four Tests.

The 71-year-old Buchanan said India would be hosting Bangladesh at home before heading to Australia and that meant the hosts would have a slight advantage at the start of the series. “I never give predictions, but I will say Australia is a favourite at the start of the series. When you look around world cricket these days, it’s very difficult to tour other countries. One of the reason for that is that travelling teams no longer have that preparation of playing two three games before the first Test to get used to conditions,” Buchanan told the media, on the sidelines of the launch of a multi-sports foundation program titled ‘Ready Steady Go Kids’ with CP Goenka International School and Sports Gurukul, in Mumbai on Thursday.

Buchanan opined that the series is going to be a different one from the previous ones given that it is a five-Test match series. “It is going to be a classic series. Five Tests, which is one more than what we had previously. It does make a difference as by the time the teams reach Sydney, they would have played presumably four hard Test matches prior to that in a short period of time. It’s going to test their resolve physically and mentally,” he opined.

The former Australian coach said although the teams are evenly matched with strong bowling line-ups, he favours Australia to win the series. “The teams are pretty evenly matched with strong bowling line-ups. Personally, I still favour the Australian batting line up a little bit at this point,” Buchanan concluded.