Rohit Sharma echoes Sunil Gavaskar’s opinion, bats for more practice matches

The Indian team’s itinerary for the ongoing tour of England has come under strong criticism for featuring not more than one practice game. Former greats like Sunil Gavaskar have been particularly critical of the fact that India did not play more than a solitary warm-up game in the run-up to the Test series in which they are trailing 0-2 at the moment. Now, opening India’s limited-overs opener Rohit Sharma has also up with a similar view.

Sharma, who was ignored for the first three Tests of the series despite scoring a ton in the ODI series preceding it, said the best way for preparing for an overseas tour is by playing as many matches and practice sessions as possible. India played just one practice game ahead of the first Test at Edgbaston against Essex and that too was cut short by a day because of hot weather conditions.

Make the best of the time in hand

“You have to prepare for the conditions and the best preparation you can have is by going to that particular country and playing as many matches and have as many practice sessions as possible,” 31-year-old Sharma was quoted as saying by India Today.

“It cannot happen because we get few days to prepare for a series. But whatever time you get, be it in Mumbai or Australia or England, you try and prepare to the conditions accordingly,” he added.

The Indian team management was criticised for not playing a single practice game ahead of the Test series in South Africa earlier this year, losing the series 1-2. In England, they played the limited-over series first followed by the game against Essex but yet could not help but trail 0-2 in the Test series. While they still had a chance to win the first Test at Edgbaston which before losing it by 31 runs, they were hammered in the second Test at Lord’s by an innings and 159 runs.

Gavaskar was also critical of India’s approach after the second Test which ended a day earlier. He felt India should have left London early for Nottingham to prepare at Trent Bridge as early as they could. The visitors opted for only two practice sessions ahead of the third Test starting August 18.

Sharma, however, said that there was very little the batsmen could do in the middle of the series as they were up against a quality English bowling. India were bowled out twice inside 83 overs by the English seamers and the hosts didn’t even require the spinner in their ranks to bowl a delivery.

“Its very tough to make changes in between. Whatever changes you do, you have to do it at the start. Trying to change a whole lot in middle of the series, would not be a good idea. You can do minor changes, but you cannot do a whole lot,” the Mumbaikar further said.

Sharma, known to be an attacking batsman in the limited-overs formats, advised the Indian batsmen to counter-attack the English bowlers.

[interaction id=”5b768dd2afc9e466b61cbe10″]

For all the latest cricket news and other updates follow CricTracker.