India series a good preparation for Ashes: Ponting

Australia captain Ricky Ponting feels playing a Test series in India just ahead of the Ashes at home will require major adjustments in the squad.

"It's obviously vastly different, if you look at the squad that we could probably put out for the first Test in Brisbane compared with the squad you'd think about playing on a spinning wicket in India, they're probably two completely different squads," Ponting was quoted as saying by The Age.

"It'd be nice to get some match hardness into the guys, having not played a lot of Test cricket at that stage, but we'll come home then and be back into one day cricket in Australia anyway so we'll just have to manage that as well as we can," he added.

Australia's tour of India later this year was supposed to be a seven-match ODI affair but after India became the world number one Test side, the BCCI requested Cricket Australia to include five-day matches during the tour.

CA is yet to respond but there is a possibility that it would not have any problem in accommodating the Indian Board's request.

The Aussies are busy gearing up for the Ashes, aiming to beat old rivals England in the historic series at the end of the year.

"We won't be underdone, there's no doubt about that, we'll make sure that hopefully every player will get at least two Sheffield Shield games under their belt leading into that first Test, which I think would be really good preparation," Ponting said.