Powerful BCCI fails to ensure warm-up games for Team India in England

Indian players get together before the start of the fifth day of the World Test Championship final cricket match between New Zealand and India, at the Rose Bowl in Southampton, England. Pic/AP, PTI

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) may be called the strongest and the richest board in the world but it seems it doesn't hold enough clout to get some county games for its team that is languishing in England.

India's loss in the World Test Championship (WTC) final exposed chinks in its batting against the moving ball as New Zealand bowlers made the ball talk and picked wickets regularly, skittling out India for 170 on the sixth -- reserve -- day and putting their team on road to victory when it looked like the Test would end in a draw.

While the team had no warm-up games during the quarantine period ahead of the WTC final, lack of competitive practice matches, especially against counties over 41 days between the end of the WTC final and the start of the first Test against England on August 4, will give them little chance to get acclimatised and improve their confidence.

India skipper Virat Kohli said they wanted to play matches against counties between the WTC final and England Test series. However, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) didn't allow that.

In the absence of matches against county sides, India were expected to play India A. But the India A tour was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Now they are left with only intra-squad games to overcome the chinks. "Well, that doesn't depend on us," said Indian skipper Virat Kohli in response to a question on whether India will be playing practice games against county teams.

"We obviously wanted first-class games, which I believe have not been given to us. I don't know what the reasons for that are," said Kohli.

Also Read: MSK Prasad: Batting unit has not clicked for us away from home

The intra-squad, expected to be two in number, will be played next month with the 24 members barely making two teams. India also have the option of calling up some players like former India opener Faiz Fazal and Mumbai batsman Siddhesh Lad who are playing league cricket in the United Kingdom at least to add to the squad for intra-squad warm-up matches.

Some of the other top Indian international players like Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw, Devdutt Padikkal, Hardik Pandya among others, will be busy playing white-ball series in Sri Lanka during July and won't be able to make it to England.

It then looks likely that the team will have to prepare with what they have in England. At best, those intra-squad games will be glorified nets.

"I think our preparation time will be ample for us to be ready for the first Test," said Kohli.

However, as was proved by the loss in the WTC final, before which the Indians played an intra-squad game, a preparation without competitive games against county teams isn't enough.

BCCI may have known it but then it doesn't seem to have the heft to push its case with the ECB or the ICC.

Also Read: Kohli hints at changes in Test squad: Bring in right people with right mindset

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever