New Delhi, 31 January : Former Australia captain Steve Smith, whose team lost the series 2-1 on the India tour in 2017, has said that the decision not to play tour matches on Indian pitches ahead of the four-match Border-Gavaskar Test series was a well-thought-out decision.
Smith said his team was better off training on their own, mainly because the hosts last time provided green pitches for practice matches while getting spinning tracks for actual matches.
We’ll wait and see when we get back on the field. I think we made the right decision not to play the tour matches, Smith was quoted as saying by news.com.au on Monday before the team left for India. As I said, last time they prepared a green pitch for us for tour matches and we hardly faced any spin pitches, so it’s irrelevant.
Australia has decided not to play a single tour match in India during the month-long Test series. The 18-man squad, led by Pat Cummins, had a pre-series camp on spin-friendly pitches in Sydney. Apart from this, the team will have a week-long training camp in Bengaluru before the first Test in Nagpur on February 9.
Smith said, We usually have two tour matches in England. This time we don’t have a single tour match in India. Last time we went to India, I’m pretty sure we got a green to practice. The pitch was received and it was kind of irrelevant. Hopefully, we get really good training facilities this time.
Australia has been criticized for not including tour matches, which are an integral part of a longer series, in their travel schedule. But Smith said the rigorous nets session would help the spinners practice better.
