The Spin | India should listen to their elders: practice makes perfect in England | Simon Burnton

Even given the modern game’s squeezed schedules playing three days of red-ball cricket before a five-Test series seemed reckless – India underprepared and are paying the price

In January, after India had lost the first two of their three Tests in South Africa, their coach, Ravi Shastri, reflected on the reasons for their failure. “Conditions back home, we are familiar with. Here, conditions are different,” he concluded. “In hindsight, I would say another 10 days of practice here would have made a difference.”

Seven months later they are two down in a Test series in England. Given the clarity of his hindsight in January, Shastri’s subsequent lack of foresight seems startling: no touring team in history has done less red-ball practice before a five-Test series in England than this India side, who arranged a single four-day match against Essex, reduced at the last minute to three days because it was a bit hot, and decided that would do. “There will be more than enough time to get used to the conditions,” the former bowler Zaheer Khan said in April. “The kind of squad we have, most of them have played in England and are aware of what kind of conditions will be on offer.” It has not really worked out that way.

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