Before any big series, it is important to have practice games, particularly if you are travelling to hostile conditions like Australia. India, in order to acclimatise themselves to the conditions, will open their tour Down Under with the first of the two practice matches against Cricket Australia Invitational XI.
Where to Watch Practice Match Live Scores
The practice match between Cricket Australia Invitational XI vs India is scheduled for a 5:30 am IST (10:30 local and 00:00 GMT) start at Gliderol Stadium. The live score updates of the match will be available HERE, HERE and HERE.
Apart from regular skipper MS Dhoni, who is nursing a thumb injury, stand-in captain Virat Kohli has the remaining 18-member to test in the first warm-up fixture. “Everyone’s fit and doing fine,” Kohli said. “We’re going to try a few more than 11 (in the tour game), that’s the plan.”
The practice match is a good opportunity for the Indian batsmen to test themselves, ahead of the first Test in Brisbane. Team India is coming into the series after spending considerable time on belters and it would be a good opportunity for them to adapt to pace and bouncy tracks.
Team India struggled in the last oversees series against England and during their last tour Down Under they faced back-to-back thumping defeats. Kohli, who will be leading the side in Dhoni’s absence, was the only century maker for India in the series.
“Pace and bounce is something you can get used to,” Kohli insisted. “But unless you’re mentally there, there’s no point of any sort of practice. They are good enough to tackle any sort of bowling in any conditions.”
Mitchell Johnson and company needs no introduction and it wouldn’t be easy for the visitors to negotiate them in the Test series but in the practice games they can take it easy as the hosts do not have any frontline pacers in the side.
Kohli is known to be a ruthless leader and India’s recent record under him is enough to prove it. “We’re here to play aggressive cricket, play the brand of cricket that Australia plays,” Kohli said. “There’s going to be more aggression this time around (from India).”
Cricket Australia Invitational XI Team: Sam Grimwade, David Moody, Jonte Pattison, Nick Stevens, Matthew Short, Josh Lalor, Alexander Gregory, Ryan Carters, Kelvin Smith, Gurinder Sandhu, Ashton Turner and Seb Gotch.
Indians Team: MS Dhoni, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, Mohammed Shami, Cheteshwar Pujara, Lokesh Rahul, Wriddhiman Saha, Karn Sharma, Murali Vijay, Varun Aaron, Umesh Yadav, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Naman Ojha, Ajinkya Rahane, Suresh Raina, Ishant Sharma and Rohit Sharma.
