Cancellation of India’s warm-up game in Perth against India ‘A’ team beggars belief: Sunil Gavaskar

Former India cricketer Sunil Gavaskar recently came forward and talked about the cancellation of the practice game that the Indian team was supposed to play against India A ahead of the Border-Gavaskar series 2024-25. With the marquee series all set to kick off from November 22, India were scheduled to play India A at the WACA before the first Test. 

However, India skipper Rohit Sharma recently came forward and stated that the Indian team will look to concentrate on the match simulation in the nets instead of taking on India A for practice. With the recent whitewash against New Zealand, Sunil Gavaskar was hoping that whoever decided to cancel the practice games knows what they are doing.

“For Indian cricket’s sake (I hope) whoever has taken the call to do away with the warm-up game and then reduce the match between the first and second Test against the Australian Prime Minister’s XI to two days will be proven right,” Gavaskar wrote in his column for Mid-Day. 

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The pitches were not impossible to play on: Gavaskar

Furthermore, Gavaskar talked about how the Indian team would have needed the practice from the warm-up game ahead of their tour in Australia. He talked about the side’s performance against New Zealand in a three-game Test series recently and opined that the pitches were not as hard to play on. 

"To be fair, the Indians did score over 400 in the second innings (of the first Test) in Bangalore, but after that, in four innings they looked utterly clueless against a spin attack that by no stretch of imagination was so dangerous that India couldn’t chase 150 in the fourth innings. Yes, there was turn on offer, but again the pitches were not impossible to play on," Gavaskar wrote.  

"That is why the cancellation of the team’s warm-up game in Perth against the India ‘A’ team beggars belief. There is no better feeling for a batter to spend time out in the centre and feel the ball hit the middle of the bat,” he added.