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Pune to host first India-Australia test in 2017

MUMBAI (Reuters) - The western Indian city of Pune will stage its first test when the home side plays Australia in the opener of the four-match series starting February. The Pune test starts Feb. 23 before Australia travel to Bengaluru for the second match from March 4. Two more venues -- Ranchi and Dharamshala -- will also host their first tests with the third and fourth matches of the Border-Gavaskar series. The scheduling will force some Australia players, who play all three formats, to miss a three-match Twenty20 international series against Sri Lanka at home, with the first test in India starting a day after the final game against Sri Lanka. With Australia suffering a 3-0 thrashing in their recent test series in Sri Lanka, there have been talks about the prospect of picking specialist players for different conditions. Australia captain Steve Smith is not averse to the idea and said most current teams in the world play well only at home. "You want guys improving and getting better in those kinds of conditions (away from home)," Smith told the Cricket Australia website (www.cricket.com.au). "But I think you need to have the team that's most suited to those conditions as well. "You pick different teams from T20s to one-dayers to tests, so why not sometime in the future pick teams for certain conditions? "That could be a possibility somewhere down the track." Schedule: 1st test - Feb. 23-27 - Pune 2nd test - March 04-08 - Bengaluru 3rd test - March 16-20 - Ranchi 4th test - March 25-29 - Dharamshala (Reporting by Sudipto Ganguly; Editing by Ian Ransom/John O'Brien)