Veteran cricketer-turned-commentator Aakash Chopra has added that the BCCI has decided that Team India will be required to play warm-up games before away Tests against the SENA countries going forward. However, he showed uncertainty about how the opposition quality would be ensured in those games as well. Ahead of the upcoming T20I series between India and Afghanistan, the BCCI held a committee meeting involving Devajit Saikia, Gautam Gambhir, VVS Laxman, Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer as well.
In a video shared on his YouTube channel, ‘Aakash Chopra,’ he said, “If you are going to SENA countries, there will be mandatory warm-up games. There was an era when the England tour used to last the entire summer. It was a four-month tour where you played seven matches against county teams. Then it started reducing slowly. It’s being made mandatory now.”
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“Theoretically, it’s not wrong, but I don’t know how to maintain the quality of those games. I don’t have the answer for that at the moment because at the time I am talking about, the teams used to be good, and they used to almost beat us. Now they play their second-team players, saying the match has no significance. So that one thing is still missing. The quality will have to be maintained a little,” he further added.
However, Aakash Chopra opined on Hardik Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah’s fitness and injury concerns while stating that the players’ workload would be managed.
“The players’ workload will remain under focus because there is IPL along with international cricket, and if you see, Hardik Pandya hasn’t played for a long time, and Jasprit Bumrah has also missed a lot of cricket. There was a lengthy discussion on that. It was decided to give more rest to the players between two series. A roadmap has been prepared for 2027. If we have to go to South Africa and play World Cup matches, can we go to South Africa before that and play a bilateral series? Can we acclimatize ourselves a little more?” Aakash Chopra concluded.
