According to team reports, there is a major change in the team’s schedule before the test series.
The Indian team will start their long tour of Australia later this month when they tackle Australia in a three-match T20I series on November 21. Post that, the teams will fight for the Border Gavaskar Trophy in the four-match Test series beginning on December 6. India are the current holders of the Border Gavaskar Trophy after they defeated the Kangaroos by 2-1 at home last year.
The tour down under will be the third overseas tour for team India after they traveled to South Africa and England earlier this year. India had a great limited overs outing in both the tours and were successful in winning the T20I and ODI series against South Africa and then defeated England in the T20I series. The team did not have a much successful outing in the longest format of the game as they went down by 2-1 and 4-1 respectively.
The Indian team went on to win a Test each in both tours but were expected to perform much better as few of the Tests were too close. Some former players slammed the team management and marked lack of match practice as one of the reasons for the team’s failures.
The Indian team did not play a single practice match on the South African tour and played only a three-day game in England against a second fiddle Essex side. That game was supposed to be a four-day practice match but was reduced to only 3 days on the Indian management’s request. After the series loss, Indian head coach Ravi Shastri asked the BCCI to arrange for tour games before the Australia series so that the players get used to the conditions down under and get some match practice.
According to reports, BCCI has asked for a four-day match before the Test series begins on December 6 in Adelaide. A three-day warm up game was scheduled before the Test series but now it will be extended by a day and is expected to start on November 28. It will be a good opportunity for the players as the majority of the squad will also play the first four-day game against New Zealand A in New Zealand a week before. Players like Ajinkya Rahane, Murali Vijay, Prithvi Shaw, Parthiv Patel, etc. are part of both the squads.
After the ball tampering scandal last year, the Aussie team hasn’t looked in good form as they lost the duo of former captain Steven Smith and opener David Warner, who are serving bans after the scandal. This looks the best shot for Team India to win a series down-under as the team has a good settled batting and bowling combination.
