India has stepped into final preparations for their upcoming Test series against England, which includes four-day match against India A team in Beckenham, which will be a great warm-up match to polish their skills and strategies for the Five Test series, which is going to start on June 20 at Headingley.
The practise match is scheduled to happen from Friday to Monday, which will not be a public match and will be played behind closed doors. Like, in the past, India also followed the same approach in Perth’s WACA ground for their practice sessions for the 2024-25 Test series. During those sessions, “black veil of secrecy” covered the nets at WACA.
India’s bowling coach, Morne Morkel, told bcci.tv while talking about the practice sessions,
“Two days [of] practice so far, conditions suited the fast bowlers. Early on in the tour is very exciting, you know, it gets their [the players’] confidence going. It was testing for the batters, which also in a way helps them to prepare for what’s to come.”
“I don’t think the wickets [are] going to be as spicy as the ones we experience here [in the Tests]. There’s been a lot of good banter between bat and ball. But I think that’s only because the wickets are a little bit spicy. As soon as the wickets go flat, the bowlers tend to back off. So I am going to tell them not to only talk when the wickets are nipping around, but when it’s flat, that’s when we are going to need the character.”
“I was a little bit nervous in terms of the lack of red-ball [cricket] we’ve played, but seeing how the guys are moving around and training the last three days, it’s a pleasing sight.”
After the landing of Indian team in England, the senior India team didn’t play a practice against England. However some of the players in the squad, played for India A in one or both of their four-day games against England Lions, which includes Yashasvi Jaiswal, Karun Nair, Abhimanyu Easwaran, KL Rahul, Dhruv Jurel, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Shardul Thakur.
Of them, Nair scored 259 runs including an innings of 204, Jurel made 227 runs which includes three half-centuries, Rahul made 167 runs including a century and a half-century in his only appearance and Abhimanyu made 167 runs including two half-centuries while Reddy and Jaiswal also had at least one good outing. Only two bowlers were part of squad in those matches, which were Reddy and Thakur, both of them didn’t give any impressive performance. Reddy picked uponly got two wickets across 26.5 overs and Thakur also took two wickets acrossin 43 overs in the two first-class games.
“Now it is slowly building towards that first Test match. For me, the main thing – I think it’s crucial in England – is consistency. There is consistency when we practice. It’s consistency off the field, you know, finding your process, what’s going to work for you as an individual.” Morne Morkel further added.
“All in all, very happy with the start so far. I was a little bit nervous in terms of the lack of red-ball [cricket] we’ve played, but seeing how the guys are moving around and training the last three days, it’s a pleasing sight. There’s some quality energy in this group and, you know, that’s what you need. You need to go into a Test series confident, you need to have that team spirit in the group and I think so far they have done a great job.”
