HYDERABAD, India: Australian opener Matthew Hayden has said all the pre-series talk about Australia’s inexperience and this being India’s best chance to beat the World champions, and the poor form of the Australians would count for nothing, when the Test series actually begins.

The Australians, in three innings on the tour of India so far, have struggled to cope with the spin-friendly conditions. Hayden himself, coming back from an Achilles-tendon injury, has only managed 50 runs in three innings.

He said, “It’s easy to say that (it’s India’s best chance), you can say all sorts of stuff, we’ll see. “I don’t think there’s any one factor that we’re really struggling at, but we’ll see, and that’s going to be up to us in their country to produce a good result.

“From my perspective, to get into that space that is very unique to these conditions is the most important thing, rather than hitting billions of balls and getting lots of time in the middle, I think the Test matches are where I want to try to do that, and I know how to play well here for sure.

“I’ve done a lot of the foundations to batting well, and even yesterday after I got out I was able to go out to the nets and work on something specific to do with what I need to get ready for on Thursday, so I feel in a really good spot,” Hayden said on Monday.

Hayden also said a lot shouldn’t be made of the practice games, which the Aussies used to get acclimatised to the Indian conditions. He said, “Although we probably haven’t hit the ground running so far as a performance goes, I think just to get your mind into that space of a) how you’re going to play the longer version of the game, and b) how you’re going to play it in this territory, I reckon is such a brilliant way to get involved.”