Amid an alarming injury toll ahead of the upcoming big Test series against India, Australia head coach Justin Langer has hinted at playing some of his Test regulars in this week's three-day pink-ball warm-up against the tourists in Sydney for the dress rehearsal for the first Test.
Previously, Australia had planned to send most of the squad to Adelaide to prepare for the four-match series-opening Day-Night Test starting December 17 at Adelaide Oval after playing the ongoing three-match T20I series and the first warm-up being played from December 6-8 concurrently in Sydney.
But now, some of the key players from that vast majority of Australia’s Test squad may take part in the three-day day-night tour game against India starting from Friday, December 11 in Sydney after injuries to some of the hosts’ top players including David Warner.
Warner (groin), Josh Hazlewood (back) and Ashton Agar (calf), Aaron Finch (glute problem), Marcus Stoinis recently returned from his side strain but didn’t bowl so far in the T20I series, while Mitchell Starc was excused from the final two T20Is for family reasons was among the injury-prone players.
With Australian camp reeling from a week of injury hell, Langer admits that it is now “very, very tempting” for more players to stay in Sydney and had spoken to Cricket Australia about managing the players through the COVID-19 pandemic during this hectic schedule.
Langer told reporters on Monday: “We’re having a close look at that. The best practice is center-wicket practice and no doubt the case to play a pink-ball game against India under lights is a very tempting preparation for a few of your players.”
He added, “I actually addressed the CA board the other day. One of the challenges we’ve got with such tight schedules ... we’ve got six injuries now, which is really unusual. We’ll obviously review it.”
The coach signed off by saying, “That’s one of the challenges moving forward when guys are playing all the tours [and have] different sorts of preparations. Each injury has its own individual reasons but that’s one of the challenges. There are other challenges.”
(With IANS/ cricket.com.au Inputs)
