'Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma would love to...': BCCI gets final advice to respond to India's 'desperation' ahead of BGT
Sanjay Manjrekar reckons India "desperately" need a warm-up game before the Australia series as he highlighted the recent struggles endured by India A batters.
After former India captain Sunil Gavaskar, ex-batter Sanjay Manjrekar joined the chorus in sending a final advice to the BCCI to schedule a warm-up game for the touring Indian team in Australia ahead of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, which begins on November 22 in Perth. India were scheduled to play a warm-up game at the WACA, Perth's previous Test venue, against India A, who were in the country for a red-ball series against Australia A. However, hours before India incurred the humiliating whitewash at home against New Zealand earlier this month, BCCI scrapped the match to avoid any last-minute injuries.
India will hence undergo a match simulation in preparation for the long five-Test series with a centre-wicket face-off against India A. However, Manjrekar, speaking to ESPNCricinfo, reckons India "desperately" need a warm-up game before the series as he highlighted the struggles endured by India A batter, who were largely in form during the first-class season at home.
"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.
'Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma would love to...'
Manjrekar further outlined that Australia would be using drop-in pitches for the series against India, which can cause trouble to the Indian batters unless they get acclimatised to the conditions in the form of a practice match.
While the concerns around India's batting ahead of the series have largely pertained to Rohit and Kohli's numbers from the recent New Zealand series, where they scored 91 and 93 runs, respectively, Manjrekar believes it's the younger lot in the Indian Test squad that are more in need of a warm-up game, given it is their maiden tour of Australia as India players.
"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," added Manjrekar.
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."
