The former top-order batter for India, Sanjay Manjrekar, reckoned that the Blue Brigade should have featured in a practice game ahead of their opening encounter of the five-match series in the Border Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25 at the Optus Stadium in Perth. The Rohit Sharma-led side was supposed to play a practice game, which was ruled out at the end.
India was scheduled to play a warm-up encounter at the WACA. But their A-side featured in two unofficial Test matches against Australia A at Mackay and Melbourne Cricket Ground. The second clash saw some of the members of the red-ball squad, openers Abhimanyu Easwaran and KL Rahul, taking part along with wicket-keeper Dhruv Jurel.
However, a few hours after their humiliating 0-3 clean sweep at home against New Zealand, the BCCI board members decided to rule out the practice game to avoid last-minute injuries. They will go into the match-day without any preparation but a centra-wicket face-off against the India A side.
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The former batter of the Blue Brigade, Sanjay Manjrekar, reckons that India will desperately need a warm-up game as he highlighted the struggles of the batters in the two unofficial Tests, despite them being in good touch 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.” The Mumbai-born expressed this during a recent interaction with ESPNcricinfo.
“It has been a trend in recent times that there are fewer and fewer 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 claimed.
Both the veteran batters of the side, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, were not in good touch in the recent home series. The opening batter could collect 91 runs in six innings at an average of just over 15 with the help of one solitary half-century, while Kohli clubbed just 93 runs at an average of 15.50, shouldering one just one fifty.
Sanjay Manjrekar expected practice game to help young players of India before BGT 2024-25
Manjrekar outlined that Australia would be using the drop-in-pitches for the series against India, which will push the Indian batters into trouble unless they get known to the bounce and other conditions in the form of a practice match.
Kohli’s main struggle in the home series came against the left-arm spin of Ajaz Patel and Mitchell Santner, which he isn’t expected to get a lot in Australia. But Rohit was dismissed four times against the spinners in six innings, and that could be a huge worry for the visiting team.
The likes of Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sarfaraz Khan, Aakash Deep, Harshit Rana are making their first trip down under, and Manjrekar advocated for the warm-up to make it easy for those players.
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“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.” Sanjay Manjrekar added.
“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 concluded.
India, however, will feature in a day-night warm-up contest before the second Test at the Adelaide Oval.