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Preparation is the first step to success. More so in the case of a high-profile series such as the one that kicks off on Thursday. The Australia and India skippers stressed on preparation time and again in the last couple of weeks that surprisingly saw more than just lip service being accorded to their plans. 
It’s not as if Anil Kumble and Ricky Ponting only just discovered the merits of preparing well, it’s just that time wasn’t on their side on some previous occasions. 

Having said that, it’s time to put forth the tricky delivery: is there any such thing as being sufficiently prepared when it comes to playing Test cricket in India? 

For one, no one, not even the home team, knows how the pitches in each centre will behave, or worse, be made to behave. Most hosting associations in India have their own agenda, which may or may not be in tune with the interests of the Indian team – whether that is a good thing or not is another matter. 

There is no traditional nature to a pitch, like say a Perth or a Melbourne, especially in the context of the current series, where out of four Test venues, three have newly laid wickets, with one in that group being at a newly built stadium. 

Take the Chinnaswamy Stadium, the venue for the first Test as an example. The pitch changed colour each day of the Indian preparatory camp that concluded last Friday. As part of the normal preparation, the grass covering was slowly removed until a brownish surface emerged. The surface by itself may not give the game away, though at least one captain can expect a surprise while the other is, perhaps, in for a shock. As skipper Kumble himself pointed out during a recent interview, Bangaloreans didn’t get to watch an Indian victory either in the final Test in 1998 or in the first Test in 2004, the Aussies winning both.