Three young Indian cricketers are returning home Saturday after completing a six-week coaching program under a specialist at the Commonwealth Bank Cricket Academy in Adelaide, Australia.

Vinayak Mane, Parthiv Patel and Deepak Chougle were selected by batting legend Sunil Gavaskar, who is a member of the Bangalore-based National Cricket Academy (NCA), which had nominated the players.

Their coach in Australia, Wayne Phillips, a former Australian wicketkeeper-batsman, said: "I believe these three young men will leave Australia better cricketers."

Another batch of three players attended the program before them.

The youngsters are in Australia under the Gavaskar-Border Scholarship program of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the Australian Cricket Board (ACB).

Candidates for training are normally picked up from the NCA, which has produced current India opening batsman Shiv Sundar Das.

Das attended the program in Adelaide last year where he honed his technique to play fast and rising deliveries.

The program is funded by the Australia-India Council (AIC).

AIC chairman Michael Abbott QC said he was delighted that the scholarship program had gone into the second term and would help promote the sporting links between the countries.