Team Australia Avoids Practice Games Before Ashes, Allan Border Unhappy

There is a lot at stake for Team Australia in the coming two months. Team Australia will first play against Team India in the finals of the Test Championship. This will soon be followed by the Ashes which will also kick start the beginning of a new cycle of the WTC. However, with just a handful of days to go, team Australia is yet to arrive in England and is not going to play any practice games. Former Australian player Allan Border has expressed his displeasure over the entire situation.

Allan Border slammed the players of Team Australia for not playing any games in the local conditions. The former captain said that the performances in the nets cannot be a substitute for the actual practice games. This is not the first time team Australia has opted out of the practice matches. Ahead of the Border-Gavaskar trophy too, the team arrived right before the series and that didn’t turn out well for the team.

Allan Border feels it is “not right” for Team Australia to miss practice games before the Ashes

“I don’t care how hard you work in the nets, nothing replaces game time. I’m really surprised we’re just allowing the Ashes tour to be so condensed with no cricket between the games. But that’s the way it is. The game’s moved on. But I think there’s an opportunity there for us to go to England early and play a couple of games just to polish things off a bit. It just doesn’t feel right not to play any cricket leading into an Ashes series. I just think that’s fraught with danger there’s something gnawing at me saying it’s the wrong decision,” Allan Border said.

Earlier this month, former coach Darren Lehmann had also expressed similar concerns about team Australia missing out on adequate time for practice. Having won the series 4-0 at home in 2021–2022, Australia is the current winner of the Ashes. On English soil, however, the last time team Australia won in a red-ball series was in 2001. The Ashes is going to be a highly intense series with Ben Stokes and his team ready to take the trophy back.