Former Australia cricketer lashes out over ‘pathetic’ actions of Indian cricket authorities

After a humiliating defeat against India in the first Test, Australia’s bid to bounce back in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy is off to a bad start. Australia batters were clearly struggling against the Indian spin attack in Nagpur and wanted to learn more about the pitch; so plans were made to have a practice session before leaving for New Delhi for the second Test. However, their plans were foiled by the ground staff, as they failed to comply with the requests of the Australian team. And this did not go down well with Australia great Ian Healy, who lashed out at India’s “pathetic” act.

Speaking on SEN, former Australian wicketkeeper Healy said that India’s move to stop the visitors from conducting some practice sessions at the Nagpur wicket was a real shame. His remarks came after a member of the VCA Stadium was seen hosing down the track after India’s win on Saturday. According to Cricket Australia, their team was forced to cancel their practice session in Nagpur hours earlier after learning that the pitch was watered the previous day.

“That’s not good, that’s just not good for cricket. The Cricket Governing Body needs to step in here. For them to water the wicket unceremoniously when it was requested for practice is horrible and that has to improve,” Healy said.

Practice session was not “naughty boy nets” but a chance for visitors to adapt: Australia coach

Meanwhile, Australian coach Andrew McDonald also commented on India’s action. The Aussie coach said the planned session was not “naughty boy nets” but a chance for the visitors to adapt to “extreme” conditions and prepare for the next game.

“It’s pretty clear isn’t it, their intent with the surfaces they want to play on. We were expecting that coming in so as I said before, we’ve been really clear on what we expected,” McDonald said.

“When we got here we got exactly that. They’re not naughty boy nets today (the planned session). We’ve got a big squad of 17 players so there’s different people on different training programs. There’ll be a couple of players from the game that will come down, so they’ll be seen at training. But it’s certainly not naughty boy nets, it’s just preparing for the next game,” he added.

The current No. 1 Test team will look to bounce back in the second Test starting on February 17 at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi.