New Delhi, October 24, 2020: The Indian team is likely to be involved in two separate matches played simultaneously during their upcoming tour of Australia, which is now all set to commence in Sydney in November. The clash is expected to occur when on one hand Virat Kohli & Co are involved in a white-ball international against the home team while the Test regulars play a practice match against the reserves in 35-member-strong squad.
While the venue for the warm-up is yet to be finalized, the New South Wales government’s approval to welcome the Indians with training exemptions has come as a huge relief for Cricket Australia who’ve spent the last couple of months desperately trying to finalize the schedule.
The Indians will also get an additional practice game, which in all likelihood will take place in Adelaide in the lead-up to the first Test starting on December 17. This will be a pink-ball contest though it’s still not clear whether it’ll involve the visitors playing amongst themselves or against a team put together by Cricket Australia.
The final itinerary for the Indians’ visit, to borrow an Australian expression, had literally become a moving feast in the last few weeks. It started with the health authorities in Queensland holding up CA endlessly over providing the necessary clearances to be the port of arrival for Kohli’s team.
That is before they completely ruled out the possibility of the Indians getting away without serving a full-fledged quarantine period upon landing, which would have completely denied them the opportunity to train.
There had been reports earlier of the Indians asking for the duration of their quarantine to be reduced to seven days. What they will get however, according to sources, is the best-case scenario, where they will have to still isolate themselves as a group for 14 days but will still be allowed to train in groups not restricted to any certain number. And though the schedule is yet to be officially accepted by the BCCI, CA is quite confident it’s just a matter of time before they do, based on the multiple discussions that they’ve had with Sourav Ganguly and Jay Shah over the last couple of months.
The Indian team’s support staff along with Test specialists Cheteshwar Pujara and Hanuma Vihari are scheduled to fly to Dubai either on Monday or Tuesday next week. They’ll then fly together along with the rest of the squad and the Australian players involved in the IPL a day or two following the final on November 10. Upon landing in Sydney, they’ll begin their quarantine in a plush hotel in the vicinity of Sydney’s Olympic Park. From there they’ll have access to NSW cricket’s high performance centre facilities, which includes indoor centres, and are currently part of the “WBBL village”, where players of all eight teams in the league are based.
The tour itself will officially kick off with the first of three ODIs at the SCG on November 27 followed by the second on November 29. The action then shifts to the nation’s capital of Canberra, which will host the third ODI and the first T20I at the Manuka Oval, on December 1 and 4 respectively, before they return to the SCG for the final two T20Is on December 6 and 8. It’ll be interesting to see where and when they fit in the practice game. There are no dearth of options around Sydney including the Showground Stadium and Drummoyne Oval.
The second practice match, which you’d think will see the likes of Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah, may be played within a day or two of landing in Adelaide.
The Boxing Day Test though still stays in limbo with the MCG still considered the favoured venue. The second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic has fortunately lost steam around the state of Victoria, with daily new cases now down to single-digits. The Adelaide Oval remains primed as the back-up in case the restrictions around Melbourne aren’t lifted further by the end of the year. The teams then return to Sydney for the third Test, which according to the BCCI’s request will start later than usual on January 7 before the final Test at The Gabba in Brisbane starting on January 15 according to the reports published in cricbuzz.com.
The matches in Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane is expected to see crowds too, even if the overall number will be restricted. The same should hold true for Canberra too by the time the Indians get here.
Thursday’s development not only clears the air over what has been a cricket summer riddled with ambiguity but also more or less confirms that the much-anticipated rivalry between India and Australia is set to be reignited.
The only uncertainty that still looms over the tour is whether the players will be allowed to bring their families along, and it’s learnt that some Indian cricketers are still waiting for clarity on the matter from the BCCI.
