Australia not afraid of Bangladesh: Lehmann
Coach Darren Lehmann is confident his side will have adequate preparation ahead of first Test in Dhaka.
Despite an enforced lay-off that has left barely a week for his team to begin and complete preparations ahead of their first Test tour to Bangladesh in more than a decade, coach Darren Lehmann does not believe Australia is at risk of entering the series underdone, reports Cricket.com.au.
The 14-man squad for the three week Bangladesh campaign, just the second time an Australia Test outfit has set foot in the youngest Test nation, assembled in Darwin yesterday to begin a week-long training camp before flying to Dhaka on August 18.
For many of the players who were rendered uncontracted and unemployed during the protracted pay dispute that was resolved last week, it represents the first time they have returned to a formal cricket environment since Australia was bounced out of the ICC Champions Trophy tournament before the play-off rounds last June.
While many of those players have been voluntarily working with state squads or undertaking individual programs, Test captain Steve Smith acknowledged this week that he had not picked up a bat in about two months.
However, Lehmann claimed today that the hiatus from cricket did not represent a concern given the amount of work the squad was due to undertake over the coming week in Darwin, and the sense of mental and physical freshness most had gained over the past month or more.
He is not so naive as to expect that some spirited form in the practice nets or during the centre-wicket trials mapped out among the fitness testing and skills sharpening over the coming week will translate into consummate performances in conditions that historically challenge Australia above all else.
While Lehmanns only direct Test experience of Bangladesh came during Australias sole series against them on home soil in 2003 coincidentally in Darwin and Cairns, where he posted back-to-back centuries - he coached them on their most recent visit there, for the 2014 ICC World T20.
He is also a sufficiently astute student of history to know that it was fatigue rather than form that almost brought Australia undone on their one and only Test visit to Bangladesh in 2006.
When, on the back of a lengthy home summer that was followed immediately by a gruelling tour to South Africa, Ricky Pontings exhausted men flew direct from Johannesburg to Dhaka and straight into the first of two Tests days later, where humiliating defeat suddenly became a distinct possibility.
Until Adam Gilchrist posted what he has long assessed as the most important Test century of the 17 he scored for his country.
For that reason, Lehmann is more buoyed than bothered by the sense of novelty that accompanied the groups return to full intensity training today, and which will continue in conditions specially created by the Northern Territory Cricket Association to mirror those expected in Bangladesh.
The NTCA have been fantastic, theyve made wickets very similar to what well get in Bangladesh theyre low and theyre slow, and they will spin.
So in terms of conditions and the heat and humidity that well face when we get there, its great preparation especially for those who have come out of winter in the southern states (of Australia).
Even though Australias performance during their four-Test tour to India earlier this year - where they scored a huge win in the first Test but subsequently lost key moments and ultimately the series - was a notable improvement on recent Asian campaigns, the sub-continent remains their greatest challenge.
Since the 2-0 success that Gilchrist and then Jason Gillespie helped to inspire in 2006, Australia have won just two Tests on Asian soil in more than a decade, one of those in Pune earlier this year and the other against Sri Lanka in Galle in 2011.
