Image Credit: Debasis Sen.
-Subhayan Chakraborty at The Oval in London
In the last pre-match training session for the Indian team in the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy, the entire squad turned up to fine-tune their game ahead of the series decider at The Oval on Wednesday. While the pacers, including Jasprit Bumrah, did not bowl and only participated in fielding drills, the batters, including captain Shubman Gill, had an intense session on the eve of the game.
With Bumrah likely to miss the fifth and final Test against England, the ace Indian pacer did not bowl a single ball. However, he was on the field, engaging in long conversations with strength-and-conditioning coach Adrian Le Roux and head coach Gautam Gambhir. He later had a discussion with chief selector Ajit Agarkar as well. He also spent time with a few members of the traveling Indian media contingent, as the session marked the last of the tour.
Akash Deep, who is set to play the Oval Test, is coming off a groin niggle and took part in bowling drills under the watchful eyes of bowling coach Morne Morkel. After successfully bowling around 20 deliveries, Akash went to the centre wicket to closely inspect the surface. Prasidh Krishna and Mohammed Siraj, who are expected to partner Akash, also bowled a few deliveries before spending the rest of their time relaxing on the balcony of the dressing room.
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Image: Debasis Sen.
After a heated exchange with Gambhir on Tuesday, chief curator Lee Fortis was once again in action. He did not interrupt the England players when they trained on Wednesday morning, but went straight to India’s throwdown specialists, Nuwan and Raghu, at the side nets while they were warming up. Later, he was seen having an animated chat with fielding coach T Dilip. He even asked Sai Sudharsan and Le Roux to move to another part of the ground when the left-hand batter was undergoing running drills.
Among the batters, Gill spent the most time at the nets, facing throwdowns, spinners, and pacers in three different nets before taking throwdowns again from Ryan ten Doeschate. He completed his batting practice and asked the fielding coach for some flat catches before joining Le Roux for running drills. In total, he spent more than two hours batting and performing other cricketing drills before heading to the lower tier of The Micky Stewart Members’ Pavilion to sign autographs for veteran members waiting for him. “Go break Sir Don’s record,” said one of them as Gill politely obliged their requests.
Yashasvi Jaiswal, who started the tour with a thunderous century in Leeds but has faded as the series progressed, focused on keeping the bat close to his body, with batting coach Sitanshu Kotak holding multiple conversations with him. The young opener will be eager to sign off from the series with a couple of match-winning knocks. Like Jaiswal, KL Rahul also spent around an hour at the nets but did not try anything fancy, focusing solely on timing the ball well.
The throwing drill at the start of the practice session, where the entire team engaged in light-hearted sledging and banter, showed that this young brigade is not buckling under the pressure of a series decider, and are determined to conclude the gruelling five-Test series on a winning note.
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