Vaughan shocked by India’s call to skip warm-up matches ahead of Australia series

PTI, Nov 18, 2024, 11:28 AM IST

File Image of team India practice (PTI)

Sydney: Baffled by India’s decision to head into the high-profile Border-Gavaskar Trophy against Australia without a proper warm-up game, former England captain Michael Vaughan has raised concerns about how the tourists would get into a “competitive mindset” without match practice.

India decided against playing a match against an Australian domestic side in the run up to the five-match Test series, starting in Perth from November 22, marking a departure from their approach on the previous two tours of Australia.

“I can’t get my head around a team like India only wanting to play an intra-squad game leading into a series against Australia in their own backyard,” Vaughan told ‘Fox Cricket’.

“I just can’t see how you get yourself in that competitive mindset of consequence by playing an intra-squad game. Time will tell.” But India have also called off their scheduled three-day intra-squad match with their ‘A’ team. They have instead opted to focus on centre-wicket training at the WACA in Perth.

The Indian think tank believed that the bounce of the WACA centre strip closely mirrors that of the Perth Stadium pitch. As a result, they felt it would be beneficial for all top-order batters to spend more time in the middle.

“I’m surprised that this Indian side didn’t want at least one game of cricket, and the WACA’s the perfect venue because it’s a similar pitch to Optus (Stadium), so you get used to the bounce,” Vaughan said.

Australia had also skipped warm-up matches before last year’s Test tours of India and England, citing issues with scheduling and a lack of trust in local curators as contributing factors.

“These players have a different kind of mindset to what we had, whereas we probably needed more games,” Vaughan continued.

“They’re playing 12 months of the year and get straight into it, but it’ll be intriguing to see how both sets of players settle on that first day when they’re playing the longer form.

“The modern player maybe believes that they don’t need (tour matches). They think they get enough cricket throughout the year and they can react and just adapt. I just like to see teams win and stick a marker down,” he added.