Mumbai
Many inexperienced players, including former captain Sunil Gavaskar, have said that the Indian team is once again going to make the same mistake it made in the Test series against New Zealand by not playing practice matches on the Australia tour. As a result, the Indian team had to face a crushing defeat in the series against New Zealand. As per the initial schedule, the Indian team was to play two practice matches against India ‘A’ before playing the first Test match.
Apart from this, before the second Test match, a practice match was to be played against Prime Minister’s XI and preparations were also made for this, but the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) suddenly canceled all three practice matches. With this, now the Indian team will start the Australia tour directly with the Test match itself. She will prepare for this test match through net practice. Gavaskar wrote, ‘Net practice can never be a substitute for a practice match.
Playing a Test match requires a passion which only comes from batting on the field. This cannot happen through net practice. Hopefully, whoever has canceled the practice match and the match against Prime Minister’s XI will prove it right. Gavaskar says, ‘The batsmen know that after getting out in the practice match, they cannot bat again. For this reason, warm-up or practice matches are more important for any batsman than net practice. Indian batsmen had failed in the series against New Zealand due to lack of practice. Before the series, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma were asked to play a practice match but they refused. Due to this, India had to face a clean sweep for the first time on its own soil.
