Holding their last practice session before being forced to go on a break by the BCCI, India’s bowling coach Joe Dawes and fielding consultant Trevor Penney made the players ‘sweat’ before the one-off practice game ahead of the five-match ODI series starting August 25.
Looking to pick up the pieces from the embarrassing 3-1 Test loss against England, the visitors now await the new coaching staff before their 50-over warm-up match against Middlesex on Friday at the Lord’s.
In the mean time, Dawes and Penney took Team India through their paces in the net session with some slip-fielding practice and throw-downs taking place as the bowlers and batsmen did their respective drills.
Newly-appointed assistant coaches Sanjay Bangar, Bharat Arun and fielding coach R Sridhar will look to bring some change to India’s fortunes with Team Director Ravi Shastri clarifying that the new team will not try to clip under-fire coach Duncan Fletcher’s wings.
Though only three players from the Test contingent, Ajinkya Rahane, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Stuart Binny, made it to the practice session at the Lord’s nursery grounds, the young brigade went about the drills diligently.
Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Mohammad Shami, took the day off after attending the nets on Wednesday. Looking to get into their limited-overs groove before the Bristol ODI on Monday, the Indian players are not only looking for a change in fortune but are keen to prove their detractors wrong, at least in white-ball cricket.
Though the team has still not talked about the one-day combination it has in mind, but Sanju Samson was seen practicing his wicket-keeping skills along with an intended slip-cordon of Binny, Rahane and Suresh Raina. The net sessions and the way they were carried out seemed to give an impression that Dhoni may miss the Middlesex game and rather choose to sit with the think-tank to try and chalk out a winning strategy for the one-dayers and the one-off Twenty20.
