India captain Rohit Sharma has said that he would prefer to have 20-25 days to prepare for a game like the World Test Championship (WTC) final, but former coach Ravi Shastri feels that such an arrangement after IPL would not be possible in the future unless changes are made by all the stakeholders.
India lost to Australia by 209 runs in the WTC final 2023 on Sunday.
The team only had a week’s time to prepare for the final as the IPL 2023 got over on 28 May.
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Shastri feels that for players to have extra days to prepare for the WTC final they will need to miss a few IPL games.
“That’s never going to happen. Let’s be realistic. You’re going to get 20 days, but if that’s the case, you got to miss the IPL. The choice is yours (players),” Shastri said on Star Sports.
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The former India player also added that the Board of Control for Cricket will need to make an arrangement with IPL franchises to find a solution to the lack of preparation.
“It’s up to the establishment as well. I’m sure the BCCI is going to review this in the future. If the WTC Final is going to come after the IPL, in month of June, for that season, if your team qualifies for the final, there should be certain clauses put in for the franchises,” said Shastri.
Sharma after the WTC final 2023 defeat said that a long preparatory camp will help India do well, similar to how it helped them on the 2021 tour of England.
“Ideally, yes, event like this, final like this, you need a lot of time to prepare yourself and that is what we did in the last time when we were here in England. We had good 25-30 days to prepare ourselves. And you saw the result. We were 2-1 up until that game got called off.
“We would want to have good time in hand to prepare, give enough rest to the bowlers.
“And then Test cricket obviously requires a lot of discipline, hitting that area consistently and challenging the batsmen – but again you know Shami, Siraj, Umesh they all are experienced. But in an ideal scenario, yes, I would prefer if we have 20, 25 days to prepare for a game like this,” Rohit said.
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Shashtri also criticised the Indian batters and their poor shot selections as they suffered a big defeat to Australia.
“What’s amazed me though is the way that the pitch has behaved. Rohit Sharma and Cheteshwar Pujara will be kicking themselves for playing the shots that they played. They were poor shots when they were batting beautifully,” Shastri said.
This was India’s second defeat in a WTC final. They lost in the inaugural final to New Zealand in 2021.
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