by India Today Sports DeskFormer captain Allan Border has questioned Australia’s decision to skip any warm-up matches ahead of the World Test Championship final and the Ashes series against India, saying the decision is “fraught with danger”.
The WTC final will be held at The Oval in London from June 7 to 11, after which Australia will face arch-rivals England in a five-match Ashes series from June 16 to July 31. High-intensity training camp at Beckenham, which will include centre-wicket drills and net sessions.
“I don’t care how hard you work in the nets, nothing can replace game time,” Border told ‘Fox Cricket’.
“It doesn’t feel right to not play any kind of cricket before the Ashes series. I think it’s fraught with danger… I feel like it’s the wrong decision,” he said.
The Indian team will not play any warm-up matches as the English County Championship is currently underway, and since the WTC is an ICC event, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is under no obligation to schedule warm-up matches for the visiting teams.
However, for the first time in Ashes history the men from ‘Down Under’ will not face any local county sides before or during their tour of England this winter. Even before the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in India earlier this year, Australia chose simulation training over warm-up games. The visitors lost the BGT series 1-2.
“I’m really surprised that we’re allowing the Ashes tour to be just so condensed with no cricket in between games, but it is what it is.
“I get it, we have IPL and T20, I get it. The game has moved on. But I think there’s an opportunity there for us to go to England early and play a few games… just to make things better. For making.” bit,” Seema added.
The ECB has jammed the Ashes into a six-week deadline to make England’s Test players available for The Hundred event, which is due to start in early August.
While players like Steve Smith, Marnus Labuschagne and Marcus Harris are playing in the County Championship, the players based in India will go to England after the IPL gets over. The rest of Australia’s Test team finished a three-day training camp in Brisbane and will travel to England later this week.