Ganguly cautions India to brace for 'bigger challenge' against full-strength Australia in 2020-21

India under Virat Kohli dominated Australia on their 2018-19 tour of the country, clinching the four-Test series by a 2-1 margin. That could very well have been 3-1 but for the Sydney rain, which refused to go away after Australia were made to follow on, having been bundled out for 300 in response to India's 622/7 declared.

However, that was an Australia team without two of its stalwarts in Steve Smith and David Warner, who were both out serving year-long bans for ball tampering. Both batsmen have since returned and the effect of their comebacks has been felt. Smith racked up runs at a Bradmanesque rate as Australia won their first Ashes series in England in 18 years, while Warner recently became their seventh Test triple centurion, when he struck an unbeaten 335 at his bastion, the Adelaide Oval.

Calling a "full-strength Australia" a different challenge, Ganguly told India Today: "That's going to be a bigger challenge, and I am sure with the standards that Virat sets for himself and the others, he will know at the back of his mind that the 2018 Australia team was not the best Australian team of this generation. And what he is going to face next year, which is not very far away, is going to be a different Australia."

Recalling the performance in 2003-04, when under Ganguly’s captaincy, India held the world's No.1 team to a 1-1 draw in their backyard, Ganguly backed Kohli’s men to replicate the feats from one of the century’s most tightly-contested Test series.

"When I became a captain, one of our aims was to compete with the best," Ganguly said. "And I remember, 2003 in Australia, against that Australia, we were outstanding. And this team has the potential to do it. They have proper fast bowlers, they have spinners, they have a champion in Virat Kohli as a batsman.

"When India travel to Australia, it won't be easy. It will not be as easy as [it was] in 2018. I don't know whether I will still be board president then, but I will be looking forward to Virat beating this Australian team in 2020, when they get there after the T20 World Cup."