Former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar shared his thoughts on Indian team management’s decision to scrap the only practice match against India A ahead of the BGT 2024 (Border-Gavaskar Trophy) Test series.
The match was to be played at the WACA Stadium in Perth. However, the Indian team management has decided to scrap the match in favor of match simulation practice on center wicket.
This means Team India will enter the five-Test series without any practice games as the first Test begins in Perth Stadium on November 22.
Speaking about the issue, Manjrekar said that India desperately needed to play the warm-up matches because of the kind of form and confidence they are taking into the all-important BGT.
"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," Sanjay Manjrekar said on ESPNcricinfo.
According to Manjrekar, there will be more grass on the Australian pitches this season, which could cause problems for young Indian batters.
Since Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel, and Yashasvi Jaiswal haven't participated in any Test matches in Australia yet, Manjrekar thought they needed some time to get used to the bounce and pace of the field.
He also felt Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma would have loved to play a few practice games before the Test series given that scored just 93 and 91 runs respectively in the 0-3 thrashing in the home Test series by New Zealand.
"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 has performed better when they have been 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.
The Indian team has already begun practice at the WACA Stadium in Perth.
