Mumbai: Erstwhile skipper Sunil Gavaskar lambasted saying remove the 'workload' word from Indian cricket's dictionary ahead of the second Test against South Africa in Cape Town, starting from Monday. The hosts outplayed Men in Blue in the first Test at Centurion, defeated by an innings and 32 runs. Gavaskar feels that India should capitalise on time between the two matches by playing against the South Africa A team or playing matches against a county or a state team for the preparations. He criticised India's workload management strategy with the schedule where they play only two Test matches with a gap of seven days in between.
Speaking at the Star Sports, India's television broadcasters, the 74-year-old also said, "Nothing happens to senior cricketers. They will play the second, third and fourth matches even if they fail. Practice matches are necessary for the young players. If you want, you can ask your senior players to come at ease, they can come a day before the Test match, but you need to arrange practice matches for the young players."
After the Rohit Sharma-led side faced a humiliating defeat in the first Test, the veteran India opener earlier excoriated India's decision to play an intra-squad game over playing a First Class practice game as a 'joke'.
"The reasons are straightforward - you didn't play any matches here. If you straightaway play Test matches, it doesn't work out. Yes, you sent the India A team. The India A team should actually come before the tour. You need to play practice matches after coming here. Intra-squad is a joke because would your fast bowlers bowl extremely fast to your batters, would they bowl bouncers, as they would be scared about injuring their batters," he added.
"My Playing XI would not change too many changes. Ravindra Jadeja, once he is fit, will probably walk back into the team at the expense of Ravichandran Ashwin. That's what it is looking to be because Ravichandran Ashwin was hardly used in the previous game. There could be a change in the new ball bowling, too, with Mukesh Kumar coming in place of Prasidh Krishna."
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