India's only warm-up game in South Africa cancelled

What's the story?

India's only warm-up game scheduled for the tour of South Africa has now been cancelled. The two-day fixture was supposed to be held at Eurolux Boland Park before the commencement of the first Test.

This leaves India without a single warm-up match for a crucial tour which will test the strength and character of batsmen, as the pitches will be fast and extremely bouncy, far from the slow and low surfaces at home.

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India are scheduled to play South Africa in their own backyard for a lengthy tour lasting nearly two months. This stint kicks off with a three-match Test series with six ODIs scheduled in between the Tests and three T20 internationals.

It is for this long and challenging tour that regular captain Virat Kohli was rested from the ongoing ODIs as well as the upcoming T20s against Sri Lanka at home and Rohit Sharma was made the stand-in captain.

The heart of the matter

Cricket South Africa announced today that India's only practice match had been cancelled and the visitors would instead conduct training sessions on the two allotted days of the warm-up game. "Please be advised that the two-day warm-up match for India at Eurolux Boland Park will no longer be taking place. India have opted for training sessions on those days," the release from CSA said.

However, CSA did not provide any official reason for the cancellation. Additionally, it also announced a change of timings for all the day-night matches during its home season including South Africa's inaugural day-night Test against Zimbabwe but excluding the T20s against India.

What's next?

With only eleven days between the series against South Africa from the currently ongoing one against Sri Lanka, India would enter a highly significant series without a genuine practice game.

Two days of additional training have replaced the scheduled warm-up match as the first Test starts at Cape Town from January 5.

Author's take

Whatever the amount of training and net practice be, neither these nor any intra-squad match can take the place of a warm-up match which provides the best form of practice, especially for conditions which would be alien from those at home.

South Africa will boast of a bowling attack comprising Morne Morkel, Vernon Philander and Kagiso Rabada (and Dale Steyn if Test match fit), and no warm-up game would demand further more application and copncentration from the Indians.