Healy said, the host team does not like to give the opponent a chance to prepare
Melbourne. Former Australian wicket-keeper batsman Ian Healy hit out at India, saying that Pat Cummins’s men are not playing warm-up matches in the subcontinent ahead of the upcoming Test tour because they do not believe in the facilities provided by the host country. 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. 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, so what’s the point of playing then,” Healy told Khawaja. Said 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. “While we have 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. He said, “Well we have also been a part of it. When our chances (in England) are over, we spend our time complaining about the weak county teams that England had made our opponents before the series.
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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’. He said, “Our focus in cricket has shifted away from providing opportunities and experience to our best and budding cricketers. We no longer provide the quality preparation for touring teams ahead of a highly anticipated series and I do not like it. Australia will start its 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.
