‘It just doesn’t feel right leading into an Ashes series’ - Allan Border on Australia opting out of playing warm-up games

With the Australian side gearing up for two big red-ball contests- the ICC World Test Championship Final and The Ashes series, former Australian captain Allan Border questioned the squad's decision opting out of playing warm-up matches, calling it 'fraught with danger'.

Perplexed with this take to not play any of the practice matches before entering into the series, Border expressed worry saying that the time spend working on the nets cannot replace the game time, and asserted the importance of playing warm up games ahead of such big games.

“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. I get it, we’ve got IPLs and T20s, I understand. 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," Border told Fox Cricket.

“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,” He further added and expressed concern on the decision taken by the Australian side.

We played two three-day games between the Test matches, and we played the day after the Test match: Border

The Australian icon was also concerned because the Pat Cummins-led side had been away from the game for four months and their previous win in a red-ball series on English soil is dated back to 2001.

“We played two three-day games between the Test matches, and we played the day after the Test match. It was a pretty packed itinerary- but no one died, no one got injured. Everyone enjoyed themselves."

“It was fantastic. You could rest guys; you could give guys opportunities to get themselves back into form it really worked well. We were away for four months. They just don’t do that these days,” he added.

The Pat Cummins-led squad will face India in the ICC World Test Championship Final on June 7 at The Oval in London, while the Ashes series will begin on June 16 at Edgbaston in Birmingham. Besides that, some of the players are now in the IPL 2023 preparing for the playoffs, while a few players, such as Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne, have been keeping up with the County Championship.