Michael Clarke, confused by Australia’s decision about the India series, exclaimed, “I Don’t Understand”

Michael Clarke, a former captain of Australia, is at a loss to understand why Pat Cummins’ team is not participating in any practise or tour games before to the start of the Border-Gavaskar series on February 9 in India.

Clarke is of the opinion that not playing a tour game might have a “major” impact on the result of the series, which will be played in India by Australia over the course of four Tests, the first of which is set to take place in Nagpur.

On Tuesday, Clarke was interviewed by Big Sports Breakfast, during which he was quoted as saying, “That’s the part (not playing tour games) I don’t get.”

“the match that did not count against the tour’s total before the first Test in India. I truly hope that my prediction is incorrect, but I believe that will be of some importance.”

Clarke, who competed in 115 Tests and amassed more than 8,600 runs, stated that competing in the longest format was an entirely different experience than playing 20-over or 50-over games in India, particularly when batting against spin.

“You need a completely different plan to what you have (been) playing in Australia, the way that you start your innings against spin bowling, the way that you play reverse swing,” he said. “Throughout the Australian summer, we did not see any reverse swing, as the games were over in two or three days.”

Ian Healy, a former Australia wicketkeeper, too recently voiced astonishment that the team would not be playing a tour game and that he was “a little bit anxious.”

Clarke further stated that the likelihood of India fielding at least two spinners throughout the four-Test series could work in their favour, considering that the Australians are mostly fielding fast bowlers.

“There’s every potential India is going to play at least two spinners, so it’s a completely different game,” said one commentator. “So reverse swing is going to play a significant part (in India), all these hitters that walk out and play bowlers bowling 130-140ks.”

It is anticipated that Australia will travel in India in the middle of the next week, giving them approximately seven days to tune up for the gruelling series. Clarke believed that this amount of time would not be sufficient.

“You need to bat in the best possible conditions (in India), because after that, if you haven’t grown up playing in those conditions, it is really tough to start your innings. If you have grown up playing in those conditions, you need to bat in the best possible conditions.

“And if you do go in, you need to go on and make a huge score because when you get your first 20 runs in India in the second innings, whoa, a ball that you can get forward to and comfortably block in Australia against spin may roll along the ground, can bounce, and take your glove.

You can try to seal it outside off, but it will bowl you leg stump; the amount of natural variety over there is enormous.

However, Australia’s head coach Andrew McDonald stated that the team had played quite a few series recently without a tour game being a part of the plan. He said this was because of scheduling conflicts.

“No tour game is something we’ve done in the last few series,” McDonald was cited as saying by the SMH. “No tour game is something we’ve done in the last few series before travelling on overseas trips.”

“We have the impression that we do not require that particular match practise. We will depart for India around one week before the first game on the schedule.

In terms of the preparation, we didn’t want to push ourselves for an excessively extended period of time.

We believe that seven days is sufficient time to be ready and to ensure that we will stay fresh throughout the entirety of the four-match test series.”