India will go from their 0-3 defeat to New Zealand to Australia in a couple of weeks’ time and they will face that challenge without the aid of any practice matches. This was their choice. They’ve scrapped a game they were supposed to play against India A at the WACA in favour of centre-wicket training with India A. This means the first game of any kind they will play during the Border-Gavaskar series is the opening Test match in Perth.
India took this decision before the whitewash happened on Sunday and the captain Rohit Sharma explained why. “Look, you know, rather than practice match, we planned a very match simulation kind of a thing with India A,” he said. “I think sometimes when you play that practice match, we’re travelling with a squad of 19 players and it was only three days that were allotted to us. And I don’t know how much workload we can get done in those three days in terms of getting everyone prepared.
“So we, as a management as well, we feel that rather than having that, the match simulation where the batters can spend more time in the middle, batting in the middle, and then the bowlers as well can bowl a lot of balls, so that is something that, we as a team feel more comfortable doing rather than playing a practice game because game time is not a problem. All of us have been playing a lot of cricket. So it’s just about spending time in the middle.”
India A are already on site and have played a four-day game against Australia A in Mackay. That squad includes members who are part of the Test squad as well and several other leading performers in first-class cricket. So Rohit is hopeful of getting reasonably good prep, especially now with the shift from practice match to match simulation.
“If a batter gets out, he has to sit in the dugout for the whole day, you know, and he doesn’t get too much of batting done,” Rohit said. “Whereas in match simulation kind of a thing, you know, the batters can go out and play 50-70 balls and then if you feel that he’s had enough, we can retire him out and then get someone else in. So that is the plan.
“We want to maximise this three-day slot that we’ve got and I feel this is the best way to do it where the batters can have a lot of time in the middle and the bowlers at the same time can get their workload in terms of getting the number of balls bowled in the middle. So that was the idea and we will be.
“I think we’ll be training at WACA, which is as close to Optus where you have that bounce and carry. So hopefully we can use those three days perfectly and maximise how much ever we can from our point of view.”
The five Tests in Australia now assume even greater importance because India will need to win four of them to make it to the WTC final next year. They may have to start the series without Rohit, who mentioned that he “wasn’t too sure if I’ll be going to [Perth]. But let’s see. Fingers crossed.”
