Final Advice to BCCI on How Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma Can Address India's 'Desperation' Ahead of BGT

Following in the footsteps of former India captain Sunil Gavaskar, ex-India batter Sanjay Manjrekar has also urged the BCCI to arrange a warm-up game for the Indian team before they take on Australia in the upcoming Border-Gavaskar Trophy. The highly anticipated series is set to commence on November 22 in Perth, and Manjrekar believes that a warm-up match will help the team acclimatize to the conditions Down Under.

India were scheduled to play a warm-up game at the WACA, the old Test venue in Perth, against India A, who were in the country for a red-ball series against Australia A. However, hours before India incurred the humiliating whitewash at home against New Zealand earlier this month, BCCI scrapped the match to avoid any last-minute injuries.

India will hence undergo a match simulation in preparation for the long five-Test series with a centre-wicket face-off against India A.

However, Manjrekar, speaking to ESPNCricinfo, reckoned that India "desperately" need a warm-up game before the series as he highlighted the struggles of the India A batters, who were largely in form during the first-class season at home.

"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," he said.

Manjrekar further outlined that Australia would be using drop-in pitches for the series against India, which could cause trouble for the visiting batters unless they get acclimatised to the conditions in the form of a practice match.

While the concerns around India's batting ahead of the series have largely pertained to Rohit and Kohli's numbers from the recent New Zealand series, where the scored 91 and 93 runs respectively, but the veteran India batter felt that it was the younger lot in the Indian Test squad who are more in need of a warm-up game, given it is their maiden tour of Australia.

"This time, the drop in pitches of Australia will have a little more life, so even more so. India can counter the fact that the team has performed better when they have been given fewer 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," he further added.