India have decided to shelve their intra-squad match with their ‘A’ side. The practice game was going to serve as India’s only preparation for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) 2024-25 before they take on Australia. But the management has decided that they’d rather train in the nets and practice on the center wickets at the WACA.
Wrong move?
This will be a change from the last two times India arrived in Australia for BGT. They played a 3-day match against Australia A in 2020-21 and a 4-day match against Cricket Australia XI in 2018-19. Aiming for a hat-trick of series wins Down Under, the preparations for the tour don’t seem to be going right. Having already suffered a historic loss at home, no game time in Australia doesn’t really inspire much confidence.
Advantage Australia
Although center wicket simulations and net sessions would help India, Australia might benefit even more. After India’s time at the WACA (November 15-17), the hosts will train there. The pitch would resemble closely that of Perth Stadium, the venue for the India vs Australia 1st Test. “Going to be some good center wickets with our boys bowling in Perth, in similar conditions to what you’re going to get at Optus Stadium. It’s probably going to be enough,” Steve Smith had recently said.
The only good thing is that some of the players who are in India’s squad for BGT 2024-25 are currently in Australia playing against their A side. Abhimanyu Easwaran, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Mukesh Kumar, Khaleel Ahmed, and Navdeep Saini are part of India A and are getting the necessary practice for the upcoming 5-match series. Three of them are part of reserves, but like last time, you never know when they might get into the side.
India’s squad for the BGT 2024-25
Rohit Sharma (c), Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (wk), Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel (wk), R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar
Reserves: Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed
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