Indian team lands in Australia ahead of series Down Under

India will play Australia in five ODI matches, followed by three T20 games. The Indian team does not have an admirable record in Australia, having lost 30 of 42 ODI matches against the hosts. Additonally, the team is heading into this series on the back of a 2-3 loss against South Africa in the ODI series at home.

Australia, on the other hand, won their last ODI series, back in September, 3-2 on their trip to England. They are heading into this series on a high after decimating New Zealand in a three-match Test series in November, and are now taking apart a hapless West Indian side in another ongoing Test series. With the odds stacked against India in all departments, Virat Kohli, Mohd Shami and Umesh Yadav's record in the last tournament India played here – the World Cup is the ray of hope for the visitors. The fans would hope for Shami to hit the deck running after a return from an excruciatingly prolonged injury season and for newly-crowned spinning ace Ravichandran Ashwin to make amends fro his poor record here.

Test captain Virat Kohli who “could not wait to get off the plane” wasted no time in announcing the arrival today.

Fixture list:

Indian squad

ODI: Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Manish Pandey, MS Dhoni (Captain), (Wicketkeeper), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohd. Shami, Axar Patel, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Rishi Dhawan, Brainder Balbirsingh Sran.

T20I: Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni (Captain), (Wicketkeeper), Suresh Raina, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohd. Shami, Harbhajan Singh, Umesh Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ashish Nehra.

Australian squad

ODI: David Warner, Aaron Finch, Steven Smith (capt), Shaun Marsh, George Bailey, Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Marsh, Matthew Wade (wk), James Faulkner, Kane Richardson, Josh Hazlewood, Scott Boland, Joel Paris.