IND vs AUS | There’ll be no excuses from our end despite split training, insists Matthew Wade

Although Australia will be with their full strength squad, all the players returning from IPL have been going through 14-day mandatory quarantine separately in Sydney. Because of this, the whole team is divided into two groups and they have been practising separately at two different places. While one group is training under head coach Justin Langer at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

Players like Steve Smith, David Warner, and Pat Cummins, who were part of the IPL are training with assistant coach Andrew McDonald across the town. However, wicketkeeper-batsman Matthew Wade has insisted that the team will make “no excuses” since the players are experienced enough to deal with the odd situation.

“We’ve been in situations like this a little bit before with Test tours being away and T20 taking place but it’s obviously something completely different to something we’ve ever faced before,” Wade told cricket.com.au.

“This group has been together a long time, especially the playing XI, so we turn up on Friday morning and everyone knows their role. There’ll be no excuses from our end.” 

The two groups will unite late on Thursday night and with the opening ODI slated for Friday with the players will have no scope to have a practice session as one unit. On the other hand, the Indian squad, which is also in quarantine after flying in from the UAE, will have the advantage of training together. Wade pointed out that the Aussies have been playing cricket regularly, which will help them in coping up with the situation. 

“India in quarantine they get to train together, that’s a slightly different scenario to us. The positive is that we’ve all been playing cricket. It’s not the off-season. We went to England when we hadn’t done any cricket. We’ve either been back here playing first-class cricket or in the IPL,” Wade added.

India’s tour of Australia will begin with the first ODI slated to be played on 27th November in Sydney, followed by 2 more ODIs, 3 T20Is, before they clash for the 4-match Border-Gavaskar trophy.