The Border Gavaskar Trophy series between India and Australia will kick off on February 9 at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium in Nagpur. Team India won the last edition of the series which took place in Australia winning the famous Gabba test. Ahead of the test series, former India head coach Ravi Shastri has advised Virat Kohli to play Ranji Trophy to prepare for the upcoming challenge.

Virat Kohli struggled against Bangladesh in the two-match Test series recently. He scored 45 runs across four innings. However, the former skipper has been in fine form in the great form in other formats. Ravi Shastri feels to prepare for the Australia series, Virat Kohli should opt out of the final ODI against New Zealand. Instead, the right-hander should play for Delhi in Ranji Trophy.

Ravi Shastri said while commentating during the series opener between India and New Zealand, as quoted by Sportskeeda,

“I’ve always believed you play more first-class cricket, especially when you are going to play a lot in India. Just feel top players don’t play enough first-class cricket.”

“There’s a lot of cricket around, you might not want to take the risk. But at times you’ve got to be smart and sacrifice certain games to look at the bigger picture. And the big picture is Australia,” he added.

Ravi Shastri cites Sachin Tendulkar’s example

Former India head coach Ravi Shastri expressed that Sachin Tendulkar played first-class cricket in 1998, before the series against Australia. The legendary cricketer slammed an unbeaten 205, as Mumbai won the match against Australia. Ravi Shastri said,

“25 years ago Sachin Tendulkar went to play in CCI against an Australian team and got a double hundred. Two months later in 1998, he had above 1000 runs against Australia in all formats. He got a terrific double hundred and Australia knew that they didn’t get that man early the writing was on the wall.”

Delhi’s performance has been very underwhelming in the ongoing Ranji Trophy 2022-23 season. They will play their final encounter against Hyderabad on Tuesday, January 24 at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium. Virat Kohli’s presence will boost the side, which will be looking to avoid relegation in the tournament.

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