Coach Andrew McDonald camped out to check the timing of dew at the Wankhede Stadium: Kane Richardson

Andrew McDonald, Australia’s stop-gap coach in place of Justin Langer, ‘camped out’ at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Saturday night. The same was in order to gauge the timing of the dew ahead of the first ODI against India on January 14. It was informed by Aussie paceman Kane Richardson, who recently played for the Melbourne Renegades in the 2019-20 Big Bash League.

The second and third T20I will take place on January 17 and 19 in Rajkot and Bengaluru respectively. The visitors’ players also practised with the wet ball in order to prepare themselves in case dew plays a major role.

“Andrew McDonald camped out here last night to try and see what time the dew came in. Who knows, everyone is guessing. I think everyone is prepared,” Richardson was quoted as saying in Outlook.

“We’re going to train today with some wet balls so we can practice that. We’ll just wait and see on game day. It”s nothing new, we have dew back home as well,” the 28-year-old Richardson stated.

We are the underdogs: Kane Richardson

Going into the ODI series, Richardson mentioned that the home team is the favourite and the Aussies will be going in as ‘underdogs. The speedster understands that getting the better of India on the latter’s own backyard won’t be a walk in the park by any stretch of the imagination.

Last year in March, Australia, led by Aaron Finch, won the five-match series 3-2 after going 0-2 down in the series. Richardson feels that after the defeat, India would be keen to hit back hard and the Aussies may find it hard to beat them in back-to-back series.

“I think the home team is always favourite. I think on the back of last year, I think Finchy (Aaron Finch) has said no team has ever won here back to back. It”s going to be so hard,” the pacer said

“India in India is always the biggest challenge and after what happened last year they will be ready for it. Confidence is up but the home team is always favourite. We are the underdogs,” he added.