No rest for the wicket as India eye chance

It’s good to know that the Indian team management is exploring the possibility of playing an extra first-class game in the gap between the end of the T20 series and the start of the first Test in Australia. It may be too little too late but at least there’s an acknowledgement that the ‘switch off’ policy didn’t work in England, where a 14-day gap was wasted giving the players, who had played six days of cricket by then, the time to switch off from the game and even take holidays outside England.

There is nothing wrong in giving players time off if they have had a tiring schedule or after a Test match where a batsman may have scored a big hundred and bowlers bowled plenty of overs. However, cricket history shows us that even in the most successful of teams there are maybe four or five players who are successful in that particular Test and could do with a break. The others would actually be better off with more game time under their belts, not to forget the five or six reserves who didn’t play in the Test. They certainly would want to play to make a case for inclusion in the next Test. In England, India had an 18-member squad so with seven members in reserves they could have easily formed a playing XI giving rest to Virat Kohli and a couple of bowlers.

Whether an extra warmup game can be played before the first Test match will be known soon enough but nobody is talking about the sevenday gap between the second Test and third Test. That can be utilised for game time for the reserves and players who haven’t done well in the first two Tests. With Christmas around the corner then it will be switch off time again.

Australia without Steve Smith and David Warner are half the side they usually are and with Usman Khwaja also doubtful for the first Test of the series and Mitchell Starc reputed for not playing a full series, this is India’s best chance of winning a Test series in Australia. Hopefully, the work ethic will be towards getting in as much cricket as possible rather than just switching off, because switching back on immediately is possible only for the truly great players and India at the moment have just one such player, the skipper Kohli.

The media reports recently seem to suggest that the skipper has asked for wives to be allowed to travel with the players on the entire tour. It’s a request that needs to be allowed. Just like any married employed person returns after work to wife and family, so also the Indian cricket players should be able to come back to their hotel rooms to their wives. Luckily every player gets a room to himself now so there’s no need to request some teammate, who is sharing a room as in the past, to move to another room. The fast bowlers during our time were the ones requested to accommodate the team member who had to move out because his roommates wife had arrived.

This was because the fast bowlers slept on the hard floor to preserve their backs and not the soft mattress on the bed so an extra member didn’t inconvenience them too much.

Times have changed and it’s better to have a player with his mind at ease than worrying about his family. So yes, wives should be allowed to accompany their husbands on the tour.

It’s the last leg of what was supposed to be Indian cricket’s best ever year in Test cricket. So far it’s been nothing but disappointment so keeping fingers and toes crossed for the Aussie tour and pray that it’s third tour lucky, else many fans will switch off and follow another sport.