World Cup 2019: Sunil Gavaskar raises finger at India’s scheduling

The Indian team will be playing their first match of the ongoing ICC World Cup 2019 on June 5 against South Africa. The surprising thing here is that South Africa has already played two matches against England and Bangladesh, losing both and the tournament has already been on for almost a week.

India played their two warmup matches with the second one coming against Bangladesh on May 30,  and India will be going into their opening encounter without much practice as well. Many Indian cricket experts have raised eyebrows over the scheduling of Men in Blue’s matches in the tournament. One of those experts is former India captain Sunil Gavaskar, who in his column for Times of India, asked BCCI questions about dates of Indian team’s encounters.

India has only a day break between matches against England and Bangladesh

Gavaskar mentioned that BCCI must have not looked at the scheduling of team’s matches, else India would not have gone into their tournament opener with such a long break as it is never good going cold against good teams in a tournament of the stature of the World Cup.

“The internal issues at BCCI probably didn’t allow the officials to have a close look at the schedule before it was firmed up, else they would have noticed that India, one of the top draws of the event, we’re going to play their first game well after almost every other team would have played their second one,” Gavaskar was quoted in his column for Times of India.

He also pointed out that given the internal matters of the BCCI, they have not got the chance to look at Indian team and dates of its matches properly, as there is one more problem which sees India playing two matches in three days. India faces England on June 30 and then after a day’s break, faces Bangladesh on July 2.

Gavaskar further mentions, “India is the only team who have just this one-day break while other teams have invariably a minimum of two between their next game. India will be playing after a whole week’s gap after their last warm-up game. All these factors may not count in the end, because the team is good and versatile, but if India do stumble then these aspects will have to be answered for.”

The Bangladesh team had already put up a strong front by defeating South Africa in their first match and cannot be discounted for when they face India later in the tournament. India will be facing them with only a day’s break after a gruelling match against England and a victory for the Tigers is a viable possibility.