Bangladesh Tests good preparation for Australia series: Rathour

India’s batting coach Vikram Rathour feels that the ongoing two-match Test series in Bangladesh will serve as a perfect preparation for the upcoming four-match Test series against Australia in February-March at home. The surfaces in Bangladesh offer a lot of assistance to spinners and the conditions in India are going to be no different.

"You expect wickets to turn in the sub-continent, and after this we will be playing an important series against Australia where wickets are expected to turn. So it's good practice for us. It will be good preparation for Indian batters. We are not discussing anything tactically but looking forward to playing good cricket," said Rathour on the eve of the second and final Test in Dhaka.

India hammered Bangladesh by 188 runs in the first Test and would want to keep the winning momentum going considering they have a superb chance of making it through to the World Test Championship final once again. 

The likes of Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant were amongst runs in the first Test but stand-in skipper KL Rahul and Virat Kohli couldn't do much damage with the bat. The two batters were seen working closely with Rathour ahead of the second Test but the batting coach didn’t get into the details. 

"I'm not going to get into those discussions, these discussions keep happening, a few things he was looking at and there's nothing to be concerned about. He was just working on something. We are looking forward to both of them scoring runs. Hoping to see big innings from both of them from this match."

Rahul even got hit on his thumb while taking throwdowns from Rathour but he said it was nothing serious. However, if he does miss out, vice-captain Pujara will lead the side and we could see Abhimanyu Easwaran make his much-awaited Test debut.

"It doesn't look serious. He seems to be fine. Hopefully he'll be okay. The doctors are looking at it, but hopefully he'll be okay."

Talking about the Dhaka surface, Rathour said: "We're expecting this one to have a bit more bounce and turn than the previous one. We look to play according to the situation. We are fine whatever wicket we get. We have absolutely no issues from our side. However it plays, we have to put up as many runs as we can and put up a good score if we bat first.