The Board of Control for Cricket in India has asked Ishant Sharma and Ravichandran Ashwin to skip their respective Ranji matches. Delhi and District Cricket Association wanted Ishant Sharma to be available for their tie against Hyderabad. However, the Indian board has mailed to DDCA to rest Ishant Sharma. The same has been informed to TNCA to rest Ravichandran Ashwin.
India will begin their four-Test match series against Australia from 6 December and the Indian board wants to preserve its key players. Meanwhile, Ishant Sharma is coming back from injury and it is pivotal to give him the much-needed rest ahead of the Test series.
Crucial to preserve bowlers.
Similarly, India’s pacer Mohammed Shami was asked to bowl only 15 overs for his state team Bengal as Shami was looking for some game time.
On the other hand, India will play a four-day match from November 28 ahead of the first Test match. Thus, Shami, Ishant, and Ashwin will have their opportunity to get acclimatized to the Australian conditions. The Test specialists will Jett off on November 24.
“Ishant and Ashwin are experienced bowlers and they need to be preserved. Shami wanted some game time but Ishant is looked at someone who has to do a lot of bowling in Australia,” a BCCI official told TOI.
Indian bowlers will hold the key.
Indian fast bowlers have shown an upward swing in their improvement graph. Thus, they are expected to come good on the tour Down Under. The Indian pace battery had scalped all the sixty wickets in the three Test matches against South Africa.
Subsequently, they did a fine job on the England tour. In fact, Ishant Sharma was India’s leading wicket-getter in the Test series against England with 18 wickets. Thus, they are a confident unit and would like to perform to the best of their abilities.
India will start the tour with the T20I series with the first match to take place at Gabba on November 21.