Delhi: Australia coach Andrew McDonald has defended the team’s preparation for the series in India, as the visitors were dealt another setback as they aim to avert a second whitewash in 10 years on these shores.

The Australians will take several days off in Delhi this week to freshen up mentally after a challenging first two Tests, where they have been beaten twice inside three days.

Several players had intended to hit the nets on Monday, but there is nowhere for them to train.

Questions have been raised over the team’s preparation after another poor performance with the bat cost them a shot at what would have been a memorable series-levelling victory.

In 2017, the team had a 10-day training camp in Dubai before arriving in India for a tour game and hitting the ground running with a crushing victory in Pune. This time, they had a shorter camp in Bangalore and did not play a warm-up match, as part of a plan to have players fresher at the end of the series.

“I still wouldn’t have changed what we did leading in, there’s no doubt about that,” McDonald said on Monday.

“I think they had really good preparation in Bangalore, so that’s not any excuses. We sit here right now - I think at the end of day two, if you said our preparation was good, you’d probably have a different slant on it, but within an hour then people start to critique what happened in the past.

“I think, at that point in time, that the preparation was really good and the way we’re going about our work was good. I don’t think that had a great bearing on what happened in that hour, we were prepared for that as well as we could have been, and we failed under the examination of India.”