India's batting is in transition and two men who are expected to take it forward have had an up-and-down time during the 2024 Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Yashasvi Jaiswal has suffered some soft dismissals since his 161 in Perth and Shubman Gill hasn't made the most of the starts he's had.
Their captain Rohit Sharma, speaking ahead of the Boxing Day Test, backed both players to succeed using their own methods.
"When you have a guy like [Jaiswal] in your squad, in your team, you don't want to tamper too much with his mindset," Rohit said. "Let him be as free as possible and not overburdened with too many thoughts regarding his batting. He understands his batting more than any one of us, you know.
"Every venue here has different challenges. So, it's just about adapting to those challenges, playing on different pitches. The bowlers are the same.
"So, it's just about understanding what they usually do and what are their plans against certain batters when we come out to bat. And then just going out there and doing their thing.
"Talking about Gill, I mean, look, he is quality, we all know that. It's just about backing that quality and making sure, you know, we give clear messaging to him and not, again, like Jaiswal, we don't want to complicate too many things with him.
"So he knows how to score big runs. So it's just making sure that when you get those 30s, 40s, you try and get on to a big one. Because getting in here is the toughest part. And when you get in, that is when you cannot leave that opportunity of scoring that big runs."
Rohit batted for over half-an-hour in India's final training session before Boxing Day. He didn't look in any trouble after taking a blow to his knee earlier.
There were some crisp shots, including a couple that brought a crowd of about 200 or so people to raptures. They'd asked for the pull and they got one off the front foot right as his session ended. Rohit didn't engage with them while he was batting but once he'd pulled his pads off, he did go over for a playful word or two.
India were able to practice on significantly quicker pitches in the nets on Christmas Eve, pitches that might bear closer resemblance to the one for the match. Rohit had a look at it on Sunday when it had some grass on it. The curator Matt Page said there won't be excessive seam movement but that it would provide a thrilling contest.
"In the previous two or three Test matches, the wicket didn't have that much grass on it," Rohit said. "It was dry. But this certainly doesn't look to me like a dry wicket."
The first day of the MCG Test is expected to be seriously hot with temperatures reaching 40 degree Celsius but then it should cool down. India are weighing up the option of playing an extra spinner - Washington Sundar, who had a bat against the main bowlers including Jasprit Bumrah and who also enjoyed himself bowling to KL Rahul and Virat Kohli in the nets - or an extra seamer - Prasidh Krishna, who hasn't played on this tour but has put in a lot of work in the nets over the last month.
The Border-Gavaskar Trophy series is tied 1-1 with two Test to go and those results will also have an implication on both teams' hopes of making the World Test Championship final in June. Australia or India, if they can win in Melbourne and Sydney, will qualify for that game regardless of other results.