Srinagar: Former England captain Michael Vaughan is surprised to notice that Indian cricket team isnt playing any warm up game in Australia before the start of Border-Gavaskar series.
When India last toured Australia in 2020/21, they played a warm-up match against Australia A before the first Test in Adelaide and also did the same during the 2018/19 campaign. But this time they are just playing intra squad matches.
However, Vaughan isn’t very impressed with India’s plan and said there is not the same competitive mindset when the players take part in an intra-squad game as compared to a warm-up match against a domestic home team.
“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,” he added.
The former English skipper suggested that India failed to get it right as they had a chance to get used to the Perth bounce if they played a warm-up match at WACA before they shift their bases to Optus Stadium.
“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,” he added.
“These players have a different kind of mindset to what we had, whereas we probably needed more games,” he 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.”