Five tests

Ready Steady Go Kids: Former Australia men’s head coach John Buchanan believes the Pat Cummins-led side is the initial favourite for him to win the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, citing the current lack of preparation time for visiting teams ahead of a tour.

India and Australia will be squaring off in the all-important five-match series at Perth, Adelaide (pink-ball game), Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney from November 22 to January 7, 2025. Australia have not won the Border-Gavaskar Trophy since 2014/15, as India prevailed over them in the 2018/19 and 2020/21 series respectively.

“I never give predictions, but I will say Australia is 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 reasons 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,” said Buchanan, who was in Mumbai to launch the multi-sports foundation program ‘Ready Steady Go Kids’ with CP Goenka International School in partnership with Sports Gurukul.