'Virat, Rohit Would Have Loved To...': Sanjay Manjrekar Points Out One Major Loophole In India's Preparation For BGT

The five match Test series against Australia is expected to pose a great challenge for Rohit Sharma and his men. The 3-0 defeat against New Zealand on home soil pit India’s World Test Championship hopes on the brink as it stands.BCCI named an 18 member squad for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy which has a mix of young and experienced names. A number of players the likes of Yashasvi Jaiswal, Harshit Rana and Nitish Reddy will be ready for an exciting matchup as they will be pitted against the mighty Australians for the first time. India currently retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy but given their recent form, the hosts will definitely start on the front. Both Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma endured some poor form in recent times and if India are to grind out something from this Test series, they will have to be at their best. To everyone’s surprise, the Indian team management decided to cancel their intrasquad match with India A and will further depend on match simulation at the WACA in Perth. Former Indian cricketer and eminent commentator Sanjay Manjrekar believes both Virat and Rohit would have loved to get some match practice under their belt before the first Test. In an interaction with ESPN Cricinfo, he said, "The lack of a warm-up game might make a difference, especially this time because of the kind of form and confidence the team is going with to Australia. It has been a trend in recent times that there are less and less of warm-up games but on this particular tour, we saw that the India A batters struggle despite being in form in the Indian conditions. So yes, India desperately needed more warm-up games," "This time, the drop in pitches of Australia will have a little more life, so even more so."India can counter with the fact that the team has performed better when they have been given less warm-up matches. In the 90s, we had many and yet lost 0-4 to Australia. I think Indian batters are getting used to conditions, but this time around, there are many young players. Maybe the earlier team which had experience did not need it, but I think we needed some games here, and I think that Virat and Rohit would have loved to play warm-up games."