Former Australia captain Michael Clarke has shared that he has been surprised by the team’s decision to not play a tour game before the upcoming Border-Gavaskar trophy in India as well. The four-match Test series will start on 9th February with the Aussies reaching India by the middle of next week as well. This gives them very little time to prepare for the first Test in Nagpur. Earlier, Australia head coach Andrew McDonald had backed the decision not to play a practice game in India but Clarke has a different view on this as well.
Speaking on the Big Sports Breakfast on Tuesday, as quoted by Fox Sports, the former captain said, “That’s the part I don’t understand.”
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“The no tour game before the first Test in India. I hope I’m proven wrong but I think that is going to be significant. Batting in those conditions in one-day cricket and T20 cricket is one thing, batting in Indian conditions in Test cricket it is a completely different game. You need a completely different plan to what you have playing in Australia, the way you start your innings against spin bowling, the way you play reverse swing, through the Australian summer we didn’t see any reverse swing, the games were over in two, three days,” he again said.
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“So reverse swing is going to play a big part (in India), all these batters that walk out and play bowlers bowling 130-140ks – there’s every chance India is going to play at least two spinners, so it’s a completely different game. You need to bat in the best possible conditions (in India) because after that, if you haven’t grown up playing in those conditions, man it’s extremely difficult to start your innings. And if you get in you need to go on and make a big score because your first 20 runs in India in second innings, whoa, a ball that you go forward to and block in Australia easily against spin, over there can roll along the ground, can bounce and take your glove. You can go to block it outside off and it bowls you leg stump, natural variation over there is massive,” Michael Clarke concluded.
