A new chapter in Indian cricket kickstarted on Saturday as the BCCI named Shubman Gill as the new Test captain ahead of the five-match Test series in England. Meanwhile, Rishabh Pant was announced as the vice-captain. The decision comes after Rohit Sharma’s Test retirement, which left the Test captaincy slot vacant. Meanwhile, even Virat Kohli announced his retirement from Tests recently.
Speaking to Firstpost, a day before the announcement, veteran batter Cheteshwar Pujara had a message for BCCI and the Ajit Agarkar-led selection committee. The batter urged BCCI officials to use a balanced approach when it came to family restrictions for players during long tours.
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“I would say that families should be traveling. They should be with the players, the window. I mean, there are times where the families are there throughout the series. You as a player, you know, professionally, you want to be attending your practice sessions. So there has to be a window,” he said.
“Normally what most of the teams do is they have a window of two or three weeks in a long tour. So if you are going away from home for 40 days, there are three weeks where families can travel. So that’s the best way to balance it out, because there are times where coaching staff or the management feels that if the families are traveling, then players are not focused enough, which may not be the case.”
‘But just to balance it out…’
{{/usCountry}}“Normally what most of the teams do is they have a window of two or three weeks in a long tour. So if you are going away from home for 40 days, there are three weeks where families can travel. So that’s the best way to balance it out, because there are times where coaching staff or the management feels that if the families are traveling, then players are not focused enough, which may not be the case.”
‘But just to balance it out…’
{{/usCountry}}“But just to balance it out, I think if you have a proper window where families can travel and at the same time, if you are going there early for preparation, then players are just focusing on the preparation part. And then when it starts you have to three weeks window where families can travel,” he added.
The Test series in England begins on June 20, with the fifth and final fixture scheduled to begin on July 31, and Day 5 is set for August 4.
India will also travel to the Caribbean for their two-match Test series vs West Indies in October, followed by a long Australia tour.