Melbourne: Former Australia veteran wicket-keeper batsman Ian Healy took a dig at India, saying that Pat Cummins’s team is not playing practice matches in the subcontinent ahead of the upcoming Test tour because they are unable to meet the conditions provided by the host country. Don’t trust the facilities.
Australia will not play a single warm-up match on the tour ahead of the four-Test Border-Gavaskar series. Usman Khawaja, a member of the team, recently said that there was no point in playing a practice match as the wickets prepared for the practice match and the actual match in India were quite different.
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Khawaja told reporters earlier this month, “Have you ever been with us (Australia) before the tour? When we play they can be spin-friendly wickets but when we get into practice matches there (in India) they give us green wickets like Gabba, then what is the point of playing.”
Healy backed Khawaja’s suggestion that it was a better idea to give the spinners a chance to acclimatize to pitches like the one in Sydney before leaving for the tour. “We gathered our spinners in Sydney for strategic discussions (on pitches like India) … We are no longer confident that the country will be provided with the facilities that have been requested,” Healy said on SEN Radio on Monday.
“Well we’ve been part of it too…when our chances are gone (in England) we spend our time complaining about the weak county teams that England fielded as our opponents before the series,” he said. ” Healy said he did not like the practice of preparing different wickets for tour warm-up matches and actual matches as it was a breach of ‘trust’.
“Our focus in cricket has shifted away from giving our best and emerging cricketers opportunities and experience… We no longer provide the quality preparation for touring teams ahead of highly anticipated series and I don’t like it,” he said. “
“It is disappointing to see this breakdown of trust between cricketing nations and it needs to stop,” Healy said. Australia will begin their Test series against India on February 9 in Nagpur. Australia have not won a Test series in India since 2004-05 and will be eyeing breaking the streak during the upcoming tour. (agency)