India's success in Australia will be about the mind, says Adam Gilchrist

“It is challenging playing overseas. I do believe India [have] a strong bowling unit and some quality batsmen, including the best batsman in the world, Virat Kohli," said the iconic former Australia wicket-keeper batsman, on Sunday, 9 September.

“They have the potential to win overseas. Perhaps it is just mind, more than the body."

The Virat Kohli-led squad are No.1 on the MRF Tyres ICC Test Team Rankings. But while they have competed well overseas in South Africa and England, with their bowlers doing well and their captain reaching new heights, they lost both those series.

The next big overseas challenge is the tour of Australia starting November, and with Steve Smith and David Warner out of the squad, the four-Test series provides a good shot at glory for the Indians Down Under.

Kohli, who had four centuries on the tour of Australia last time and made his captaincy debut then, will again be the main man, said Gilchrist.

“What I admire about Virat’s captaincy is his tenacity and the way he drags his team with him just by being positive,” he explained. "Perhaps, it would not be advisable for Australians to upset him because it may boomerang against them as he is world’s best batsmen at the moment.

“He looks to me like a guy who likes challenges when the chips are down … From Australia’s point of view, they do not want him to score as heavily as he is doing in England.”

Speaking to ESPNcricinfo, Gilchrist was also excited about the prospect of two quality pace attacks playing a big role for their teams.

"In England, [the Indian attack] have shown the potential to rip through the batting line-up. They're all fit, strong and aggressive young men so those are all the virtues you need to take on Australia in Australia," he said.

"And from an Australian perspective, we have [Mitchell] Starc, backed up by Pat Cummins, who is outstanding, and [Josh] Hazlewood is almost [Glenn] McGrath like with his methodic repetitious bowling, so there's three guys there, and there are a couple in the wings as well.

"As the series goes on, we're going to find out who has the better pace attack, and that is going to be the most intriguing part of the series."