Tour’s on, with a proviso
INDIA’S cricket chief Sourav Ganguly says the national team will tour Australia in December, but he called for a shortened quarantine period for the players.
Australia has checked the spread of the coronavirus except in Melbourne, its secondbiggest city, which has seen a recent surge in cases.
“Ya, ya, we have confirmed that tour. In December we will be coming. We just hope the number of quarantine days get reduced a bit,” Ganguly told TV channel India Today.
“Because we don’t want the players to go all that far and sit in hotel rooms for two weeks. It is very, very depressing and disappointing.
“And, as I said Australia and New Zealand have been in good position except Melbourne. So from that point of view we will be going there and hopefully the quarantine days will be less and we can get back to cricket.”
The West Indies squad spent 14 days in quarantine after landing in England on June 9 for the three-Test tour, that began on July 8, marking the return of international cricket.
Virat Kohli’s India is scheduled to tour Australia for four Test matches in DecemberJanuary. India won a four-Test series in Australia 2-1 in 2018-19.
“It is going to be a tough series. It is not going to be what it was two years back. It is going to be a strong Australia but our team is as good,” Ganguly said. “We have the batting, we have the bowling. We just need to bat better.
“When we were so successful in England, in Australia, in Pakistan, we were getting 400-500-600 in Tests.”
India’s series victory two years ago was its first in Australia after 71 years of trying.
But Australia was without top batsmen David Warner and Steve Smith, who both missed the series because of their ball-tampering bans.
Meanwhile the Indian Premier League is still searching for a window this season, and Ganguly said he does not want 2020 to “finish without the IPL”.
The International Cricket Council will this month decide on the future of the Twenty20 World Cup, which is scheduled for October-November in Australia.