Rohit Sharma and Co had another extensive training session in the build up to the first Test against Bangladesh with all 16 squad members turning for practice at the Chepauk in Chennai on Monday. (More Cricket News)
After a day off, the India squad members took part in their third training session since their arrival here last week. The first Test begins on Thursday.
As it is often the case, Virat Kohli was among the first set of batters to hit the nets. In the adjacent net was southpaw Yashasvi Jaiswal as both he and Kohli faced Jasprit Bumrah and home hero R Ashwin.
The next set of batters included skipper Rohit, Shubman Gill and Sarfaraz Khan, the last named player arriving here after taking part in the second round Duleep Trophy match in Anantapur. The captain focussed on playing spinners, keeping Bangladesh's slow bowling attack in mind.
Ravindra Jadeja, Rishabh Pant and pacer Mohammed Siraj too faced local bowlers and a significant amount of throwdowns.
The practice pitch at the main square offered a decent amount of bounce.
India will have two more practice sessions scheduled before the series opener against Bangladesh, who are riding on the confidence of their series sweep in Pakistan.
Most players in the playing eleven select themselves. The Chennai surface usually favour the spinners and there is likelihood of India going into the game with three spinners and two pacers.
The spinners expected to feature are Ashwin, Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav while Bumrah and Siraj will share workload in the pace department. Axar Patel, despite his impressive all-round returns across formats, may have to sit out.
On the batting front, Pant is expected to make his Test return after a gap of almost two years. Dhruv Jurel, who impressed in his debut series against England, will be benched in that case.
Shuttle runs and intense catching practice
Fielding coach T Dilip was impressed with the intensity of the unit despite punishing Chennai weather which is humid all the year round.
"Today, whole session idea was to get everyone together for a team drill with two segments to it. First is competition taking humidity into account, we made sure that volume is less but intensity is more," Dilip told bcci.tv after the session.
He then explained the training module.
"We split teams into two groups and made some competition in catching and the team that made less number of errors won. It was Virat's team that won today," he informed.
Dilip, the only support staff from the Rahul Dravid's team, who is part of Gautam Gambhir's entourage, also spoke about players coping extreme weather and giving it their all during the session.
"We split two batches -- bowlers and all-rounders split into two stations, where outfield and in-field catching was taken care of along with attacking ground fielding.
"The second group was standard batting group for slip cordon catching and also short-leg, silly point with some reflex catching," Dilip explained.
He seemed pleased with the effort put in by Rohit Sharma's men.
"Overall, I feel it was a fantastic session, considering hot overhead sun and getting used to it but one great part about this team is throughout all stations, the intensity was top notch in this weather," Dilip concluded.
