The former captain of the England side, Michael Vaughan, has displayed his surprise at the decision of the Indian team to choose not to be part of any warm-up games ahead of their series opener at the Optus Stadium Perth for the Border Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) 2024-25. The players took part in the three-day match simulation at the WACA against the India A side.
However, the decision was different and changed just after the final ODI at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, where they omitted the intra-squad match with the A-side. During the last trip to Australia in the 2020/21 season, the visiting team played the warm-up fixture against Australia before the opening game in Adelaide, and the same took place in 2018/19.
India has been unbeaten against this opponent in the red-ball series for over a decade, as Australia was blown away with two successive series defeats at home against the Blue Brigade. But because of the recent 0-3 clean sweep against New Zealand at home, the Rohit Sharma-led side will need to grab four victories in five games, without allowing any defeat to confirm their participation in the final of the upcoming World Test Championship (WTC) 2023-25.
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However, Michael Vaughan isn’t impressed with the plan of India and feels that there isn’t the same competitiveness when the players take the field for the intra-squad game as compared to the warm-up encounter against the domestic home side.
“I can’t get my head around a team like India only wanting to play an intra-squad game leading into a series against Australia in their backyard.” The former Ashes-winning leader for England expressed this in a recent discussion on Fox Cricket.
“I just can’t see how you get yourself in that competitive mindset of consequence by playing an intra-squad game. Time will tell.” Michael Vaughn shed light.
Michael Vaughan slams India’s decision to ignore practice game before Perth Test
Both the stars of India’s batting have been going through a rough patch with the likes of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli struggling in the home season. The former, who will miss the opening game of the series due to family commitments, notched up 91 runs in six innings at an average of around 15 with one solitary half-century, while Kohli grabbed 93 runs in six innings at an average of 15.50.
It would have been an opportunity for the latter especially to find the mojo against the pace and bounce of the Optus Stadium. The former England captain has suggested that India failed to get it right as they had a chance to play the warm-up at the WACA before they shifted their base to Optus.
“I’m surprised that this Indian side didn’t want at least one game of cricket, and the WACA’s the perfect venue because it’s a similar pitch to Optus (Stadium), so you get used to the bounce.” Michael Vaughan remarked.
The 50-year-old also painted the difference in mindset between the players of various generations as he reckoned that the past players used to need more games to get used to the conditions.
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“These players have a different kind of mindset to what we had, whereas we probably needed more games. They’re playing 12 months of the year and get straight into it, but it’ll be intriguing to see how both sets of players settle on that first day when they’re playing the longer form.” Michael Vaughan elaborated.
“The modern player maybe believes that they don’t need (tour matches). They think they get enough cricket throughout the year and they can react and just adapt. I just like to see teams win and stick a marker down.” The Manchester-born concluded.
