Shubman Gill, India’s Test and ODI captain, has suggested the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to let the Test team prepare better ahead of major series.
“One of the suggestions that I was very keen on is, if you would see in the last two Test series that we played, we didn’t have that much time to prepare,” Gill said on Saturday, the eve of India’s three-match ODI series against New Zealand.
“It’s not easy playing in India, and playing another match in a different country on the fourth day, especially when you are travelling on long tours. Even if you would have won the series against South Africa, it still wouldn’t have made that much of a difference, because we know we need to prepare well to be able to win Test matches all over the world.”
Gill’s remarks came a day after the BCCI hierarchy – president Mithun Manhas, secretary Devajit Saikia, vice-president Rajeev Shukla – met along with VVS Laxman, the head of cricket at centre of excellence, and Abey Kuruvilla, the general manager of cricket operations, to chart out roadmap for Test cricket progress.
The BCCI has been soul-searching ever since India was whitewashed by South Africa at home – a second home whitewash in a year – two months ago. Saikia admitted after the meeting that the BCCI is keen on imbibing red-ball skills among youngsters who are more focussed on T20 exploits.
Gill underlined the importance of preparation. “Preparation for me is really big, and I didn’t think that we had that much time to prepare when we came back from Australia, or even after the Asia Cup when we played the West Indies series,” he said.
“It’s important to at least have some bit of preparation, some time, especially changing from white-ball format to red-ball. I think we will take some action and we will keep it in mind to be able to prepare well before the start of any red ball series.”
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