New Delhi
\nThe playing conditions will not be similar to Australia but it would be still be valuable match practice for the Test regulars, who are part of India A squad in New Zealand, insists Rahul Dravid.<\/p>\n
India Test vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma, Murali Vijay, Prithvi Shaw, Parthiv Patel and Hanuma Vihari figure in the A squad for the first unofficial Test, scheduled in Mount Maunganui from November 16.
\nAll these six players have also been picked for the four-Test series in Australia, beginning December 6.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it will be a very good opportunity for some of the boys who are requested by the senior team management to be a part of the A tour,\u201d Dravid told bcci.tv.
\n\u201cThey will be able to gain some match-time experience even if the conditions are not going to be exactly the same or it is not like being in Australia. The A team format is pretty competitive and it is match-time experience. It is a good opportunity in the lead up to international tours.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we see nowadays is that there is not much time for practice or practice games in the lead up to an international series because of the amount of cricket that is being played.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom Indian cricket\u2019s perspective by organising these tours, we can give the boys a better chance to prepare for an international series. It is exciting to have the senior boys with us. The objective for us is to prepare them for Australia and at the same time, the younger boys get an opportunity to share the dressing room with them,\u201d said the former India captain.<\/p>\n
The tour has gained more significance as India just play only one warm-up game before the first Test begins at Adelaide on December 6.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is really nice to be able to hold such tours just before the Indian team visits these countries. We are trying to achieve that with the A team programme. We are trying to have shadow tours. We did it in England and we could obviously not do it in Australia, but it is great to go to New Zealand instead,\u201d said Dravid.<\/p>\n
The batting great said the focus will be on red-ball cricket during the team\u2019s stay in New Zealand.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe focus on the New Zealand tour is more about four-day cricket and I think we are playing really good white ball cricket. I have seen this on the A tour over the last two and a half years. We have been really competitive and building a very good bench strength. The IPL really helps in that department.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe push from my perspective and some of the thinking and planning that has gone into is that we try and improve our longer format cricket, especially when travelling overseas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Delhi The playing conditions will not be similar to Australia but it would be still be valuable match practice for the Test regulars, who are part of India A squad in New Zealand, insists Rahul Dravid. India Test vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma, Murali Vijay, Prithvi Shaw, Parthiv Patel and Hanuma Vihari figure in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47090,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47089"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47091,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47089\/revisions\/47091"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}