I have my work cut out

I have not played much Test cricket in the subcontinent. In India, I have only played one Test -- the one-off game in Delhi, in 1996. Other than that, there was my first trip here as part of an academy side in 1992-93 and of course the one-day tournaments I have participated in. I was not part of the team that came to India in 1998 because of an injury.

The current tour commences when winter is all but over in India. This means we have to cope with the heat right through the series. Back home, the part of New South Wales I grew up in is also pretty hot, but it is a dry heat quite unlike the humidity one faces in India. As a result I plan to play only one of the two side games, the one in Mumbai, ahead of the Test series. This will help me acclimatize to the conditions before the big games.

For the first time in Tests we will be using ice vests. These are double-layered vests, which have gel in between. When refrigerated, the gel cools and hence the name. They are extremely useful to cool off during a hot day on the field, and I plan to have someone at the boundary line to provide me with one when I get to fine leg after bowling an over. Other than this we plan to have ice baths between sessions to beat the heat. Basically we fill bathtubs with ice and soak ourselves waist down so as to rest our fatigued legs. This always helps to relieve the legs, after a hard day of bowling long spells.

I am quite aware of the fact that I have my work cut out during the forthcoming series. It is certainly hugely disappointing that Brett Lee is not part of the tour. Indians are always a little tentative against raw pace, and Lee would have been an asset to the side. He is much quicker than the rest of us and would have added a great deal of aggression to our attack.

Having said that, there is still quite a bit of ammunition in our pace attack. Jason Gillespie, Damien Fleming and Michael Kasprowicz will be sharing responsibilities with me. It's great to have Dizzy (Gillpespie) back after a short lay-off due to injury. He gets the ball to bounce a lot more than Brett and will definitely bother the Indians. Fleming too is a great asset to the side because he swings the ball and has some experience in bowling on slow, low tracks. Michael had a five-wicket haul in Bangalore during the last series here and has troubled the Indians in the past.

We are aware that the Indians are great players of spin bowling, and I know that I have a lot of bowling to do here. I think my accuracy will be pretty useful in such conditions, and that patience is the key. If I can keep the ball at the right line and length and then wait for things to happen I am sure I will be successful. Bowling a lot of overs has never been a problem because if I had my way I'd have bowled every second over in an innings. I firmly believe that the only way to get more wickets is to bowl more overs.

I am also ready for the slow, low wickets in the subcontinent. Sourav has gone on record saying that he will not ask curators at the Test centres to make low, spinning wickets. If that is the case we are quite happy, though we are ready for the low bouncing wickets typical to this part of the world.

Outside cricket, I plan to do some travelling. I have always believed in exploring the countries I visit and generally like moving out of the five-star hotels along with my mate Steve. When we were in West Indies we visited one of the greatest waterfalls in the world and in South Africa and Kenya we went to some of the well-known game parks in those countries. Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer are some of the others who are bitten by the travelling bug.

I have been to the Taj Mahal during my earlier visits to India and would like to go to Agra again. That apart I’m asking around to find out about interesting places near the venues we are playing at. Hotel rooms all over the world look pretty much the same and it’s no use being cooped up when there is a world outside to explore, and Steve and I plan to see a lot of India this time round.

Gameplan

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