Following former India captain Sunil Gavaskar, ex-India batter Sanjay Manjrekar has also urged the BCCI to arrange a warm-up match for the Indian team ahead of their Border-Gavaskar Trophy tour in Australia, set to begin on November 22 in Perth.
India had originally planned a warm-up game at the WACA, Perth’s former Test venue, against India A, who were already in Australia for a red-ball series against Australia A. However, just hours before India faced a home series whitewash against New Zealand earlier this month, the BCCI canceled the match to prevent any last-minute injuries.
Instead, the Indian team will prepare for the five-Test series through a match simulation involving a centre-wicket clash with India A.
Speaking to ESPNCricinfo, Manjrekar emphasized that India “desperately” needs a warm-up match prior to the series, citing the struggles of the India A batters despite their strong performances during the domestic first-class season.
“The lack of a warm-up game might make a difference, especially this time because of the kind of form and confidence the team is going with to Australia. It has been a trend in recent times that there are less and less of warm-up games but on this particular tour, we saw that the India A batters struggle despite being in form in the Indian conditions. So yes, India desperately needed more warm-up games,” he said.
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‘Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma would love to…’
Manjrekar further outlined that Australia would be using drop-in pitches for the series against India, which could cause trouble for the visiting batters unless they get acclimatised to the conditions in the form of a practice match.
While much of the discussion about India’s batting ahead of the series has focused on Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli’s performances during the recent New Zealand series, where they scored 91 and 93 runs respectively, the veteran India batter believes that it is the younger players in the Indian Test squad who are in greater need of a warm-up game, as this will be their first tour of Australia.
“This time, the drop in pitches of Australia will have a little more life, so even more so. India can counter the fact that the team performed better when they were given fewer warm-up matches. In the 90s, we had many and yet lost 0-4 to Australia.
I think Indian batters are getting used to conditions, but this time around, there are many young players. Maybe the earlier team which had experience did not need it, but I think we needed some games here, and I think that Virat and Rohit would have loved to play warm-up games,” he further added.
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