Legendary batter Sunil Gavaskar said that Indian batters should take part in Ranji Trophy matches before playing high-voltage Tests to keep themselves in the “right frame of mind”.

Gavaskar was not happy after most of the Indian batters struggled to convert their starts in the first two Test matches against Ben Stokes’ England in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam.

Gavaskar said that if players take part in domestic first-class matches, it will eventually help them stay prepared to face quality bowling attacks in Test matches.

“What [When] the batters’ failure to get big runs also shows how important it is before a Test match series for both batters and bowlers to play some first-class [Ranji] games and get themselves in the right frame of mind for the longer format of the game,” Gavaskar wrote in his column for Mid-Day.

“The Ranji Trophy had started, and it would have been perfect timing for the batters to get into the groove for the Test series by playing a couple of games,” he added.

How have India batters performed against England?

In the second Test at the Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium, Yashasvi Jaiswal scored 209 runs in the first innings, after which Shubman Gill racked up a match-winning 104 in the second.

In fact, Jaiswal is the leading run-scorer of the series, having racked up 321 runs from 2 matches at an average of 80.25 and a strike-rate of 75.35. In the first Test, he missed out on a hundred, but made amends in the second Test.

However, the likes of Shreyas Iyer, KS Bharat and debutant Rajat Patidar failed to make their starts count in Visakhapatnam despite showing a lot of promise.

India beat the Three Lions by 106 runs to draw level in the 5-match Test series on the back of Jaiswal and Gill’s brilliance with the bat.

The third Test is scheduled to get underway on February 15 at the Saurashtra Cricket Association (SCA) Stadium in Rajkot.

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