John Buchanan picks Australia as favorites for Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25, explains colossal reason

Ex-Australia coach John Buchanan has picked Australia as the favorites to win the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25 and end their drought of a Test series win over India that has continued since 2014-15.

The Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25 is the year's most anticipated series where Australia will host India for a five-match Test series. The grueling series will be played in November this year and will continue till the beginning of next year.

India have registered historical Test series wins the last two times they traveled to Australia. In fact, India have won the Border-Gavaskar Trophy on the previous four occasions, two home and two away. As a result, Australia will be desperate to prove a point in the upcoming series.

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John Buchanan explains why Australia will win the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25

While speaking at an event at the CP Goenka International School, Mumbai, John Buchanan was asked to predict the scoreline for the series. While John Buchanan refused to go into the numbers, he predicted that Australia would win the series due to India's lack of preparation.

John Buchanan claimed that India will have problems while playing on bouncy Perth wickets just after the home Test series against Bangladesh and New Zealand.

"I never give predictions on numbers, but I'd just say that I think that Australia's favoured going into the series right at this stage.

"Particularly, when you look around world cricket these days, and it has been for some time, it's very difficult to tour other countries, and one of the reasons for that is that travelling teams no longer have that preparation in a country," John Buchanan said, as quoted by TOI.

"They don't play two or three games prior to playing the first Test to adjust to a country, because nobody wants to tour for that long. That makes it very difficult when you go to Perth, when it's fast and bouncy, for a side that's coming from...they will have played Bangladesh and New Zealand at home obviously.

"So, the wickets are going to be completely different. Albeit it's fantastic lead-in that they're playing some Test cricket, but it's going to be quite difficult to go to Perth to start with," he added.

India are not scheduled to play any practice match so far before the start of the Test series in November. However, the Men in Blue will play a warm-up match before the day-night Test in Adelaide.

India's schedule for the Test series in Australia

The series will begin on November 22 in Perth, which is expected to offer a pitch full of pace and bounce. The second Test at Adelaide will begin on December 6. The last time India played a Test match in Adelaide, they were bowled out for a record-low 36 and went on to lose the match.

The historic Gabba in Brisbane will host the third Test of the series. This is the same ground where India ended Australia's 32-year reign with a historic Test win in the 2020-21 series. The fourth and fifth Test will be played in Melbourne and Sydney. While Melbourne will host the historic Boxing Day Test, Sydney will be the host to the New Year Test.