Former Test team captain Mark Taylor has suggested that both Australia and India need to significantly improve their performance away from home in the long format of the game before the battle for the Border-Gavaskar trophy was regarded as one of cricket's premier series.
Taylor believes that the Tests between Australia and India had been hard fought and also spice at times.
The fact the last Indian team to tour Australia in 2011-12 was trounced 4-0 in the Test series and the Australians who travelled to India last year suffered the same fate served to support Taylor's view that both nations had to work harder on mastering the other's conditions, Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Taylor said that the rivalry is getting there, however, he added that at the moment, they are travelling to India and not playing well and when the Indians come to Australia they don't play well.
He said that he does not doubt people in Australia want to see the hosts win as does he but added that he wants to see India come there and play good cricket against them, just as he wants to see Australia travel to India and perform well.
Taylor said that that is an area where both nations have to definitely work harder; they need to work harder on not just being flat-track, or hometown, bullies but to be teams that are competitive when they go away.
Taylor said Cricket Australia had made provisions for its players to become more familiar with the foreign arenas and he cited such things as pitches that were made to replicate sub-continental conditions as extremely positive moves.
However, the former skipper also said that the players needed to immerse themselves in a style of cricket that might be out of their comfort zones.