Australia's preparation for their upcoming tour to India has hit high gear as Pat Cummins's side looks to claim the Border-Gavaskar trophy on foreign soil for the first time in almost two decades.
Australia's quest to win in India for the first time since 2004 has hit an early snag as the tourists will be without veteran quick Mitchell Starc for at least the first Test in Nagpur as he continues to battle a finger injury.
"Mitch had a bowl [Sunday], he was still strapped on that finger … on a splint – so he's still a little while off," Australian coach Andrew McDonald told ABC Sport.
"And nothing's changed in terms of where he's at – he'll be available for the second Test match, assuming that all things go well. But we can't accelerate that with the nature of the injury.
"To mitigate against any of that risk, he still has to stay in the splint but for those who were down at training today, it didn't look too dissimilar different to what he usually produces but just with the splint on.
"He obviously can't bowl with that in the game."
The news is better when it comes to all-rounder Cameron Green, who's been carrying a finger problem since the Boxing Day Test victory over South Africa.
McDonald said Green would be given every chance to prove his fitness ahead of the series opener.
"He hasn't been ruled out," McDonald said.
"We just want to make sure we set up all our players up for success and there isn't much time left from now to the four-week check-in around his finger to the start of that test match.
"We'll see how he goes in the build-up and make that decision when we get on the ground in India."
Australia will carry four spinners in their squad with Todd Murphy, Ashton Agar and Mitchell Swepson fighting it out to possibly partner Nathan Lyon in the starting XI.
While McDonald pointed out there was still a chance Australia only play Lyon, he was encouraged by the progress the quartet had made at a recent spin-bowlers training camp, an aspect of preparation that could prove crucial in the Indian conditions.
"It's a great opportunity to get them all together and implement some of those tactical nuances that we're going to go through in India, drip-feeding the information around what to expect, how we want to go about bowling to certain individuals and that information has been tabled and we feel they have the space to make that happen," McDonald said.
"But most importantly, the physical demands on the spinners will be at a high level as well. We normally talk about the fast bowlers but the spinners carry a lot of the workload when we go to India so that will be a challenge for them."
Agar bowled alongside Lyon in Australia's most recent Test and while he went wicketless at the SCG against South Africa, McDonald cited the West Australian's precision as his main strength as a bowler.
"Left-arm orthodox is usually very successful on the subcontinent. It gives you a second spinner who takes the ball in a different direction to Nathan and generally speaking he (Agar) is accurate, he can land it where he wants to most of the time," he said.
"Todd Murphy spins the ball the same way as Nathan Lyon, so that would be something that hasn't been done before, picking two frontline off-spinners and taking into account you also have Travis Head, but he wouldn't be out of place at that level.
"Mitchell Swepson, he's been there and partnered up with Nathan Lyon on the last two subcontinent tours and did a fair job within those two series in Pakistan and Sri Lankia.
"We feel like when we get on that plane we'll have great options for the captain and the selectors to work through and put on the park."
