Indian batters inexperienced, but technically no sitting ducks

I stumbled on the itinerary of the Indian team's 1952 tour to England.

- Sanjay Manjrekar

It began in early May with two months of 'warm up' matches (tour games) before India played the first of their four Test matches in July. India played a total of 29 matches on that trip!

Those were obviously different times when national teams had a lot of free time, India even more, as it was an emerging Test nation.

Now India are like business tycoons with a packed itinerary and not a day to spare, and within these constraints Indian cricket does its best to give overseas Test cricket the due diligence it commands. To expect more commitment than this would be unreasonable, so now it's a week in advance at the most and a couple of 'friendly' matches before India play their first Test on a foreign tour.

Because Indian players go to England and Australia a lot now it's more a matter of getting reacquainted with conditions for players. With very few first-class games before the first Test, modern players make the mistakes they would have made in the warmup games in the actual Test match; it's learning in the job kind of situation.

In England, to put it simply, it's just two primary adjustments that players have to make.