Legendary Indian cricket icon Sunil Gavaskar expressed his disappointment with Team India's choice to cancel a planned practice match in Australia involving both the senior team and India A. India's senior team is not planning to participate in any warm-up matches in Australia before embarking on a five-Test series for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. BCCI officials said that they want to avoid any last-moment injuries for all the players.
After India's disappointing batting performance in the recent home series against New Zealand, Gavaskar is advocating for a sensible approach. He suggests incorporating warm-up matches to better prepare the Indian players. The Indian team was already under the fireline after the whitewash by the Blackcaps after which many experts and ex-international players suggested playing domestic cricket to the senior pro of the team.
Australia present a unique challenge with its fast and bouncy pitches; Gavaskar insists that warm-up games are essential. Specifically, batsmen such as Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma who are currently not performing well, along with recent additions to the team like Yashasvi Jaiswal and Sarfaraz Khan, could gain an advantage from it.
"Australia can be salvaged because the pitches there are beautiful to bat on after the first dozen overs or so, after which the ball hardly deviates off the surface. To do that, though, the team needs to play a bit more on those kinds of pitches. Instead, we are now told that the warm-up game before the first Test has been called off. Wouldn't it benefit youngsters like (Yashasvi) Jaiswal and Sarfaraz (Khan), who are playing on Australian pitches for the first time, to get some runs under their belt and get a feel of what the pitches will be like?" Gavaskar wrote, in his column for Sportstar. "And if they get out early, they can still get into the nets and practice against the throwdown specialist or the net bowlers. For bowlers like Akash Deep and Harshit Rana, it's essential to know the best length to bowl in Australia, as it's different from India, and the best learning is in a proper match and not just net practice, "Let's just hope that good sense prevails, and even now, though it's too late, some warm-up games can be arranged," Gavaskar added.
The heat is increasing day by day for the Indian team before the start of BGT, now all eyes are on Indian players on 22nd November when they'll take on Australia in Perth.