New Delhi | India’s head coach Rahul Dravid underlined the importance of ‘quality practice and good intensity’ and said it will be key in the first match of the South Africa Test series starting on December 26.
With the entire India squad in attendance during a gruelling practice session under overcast conditions on Sunday evening, Dravid said, “The next three days are going to be really important in terms of our preparation and getting ourselves right for the first Test," adding that quality practice and good intensity would help the team to overcome the challenges it’s likely to face on pacey wickets here.
The training session saw pacers Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd Siraj and veteran fast bowler Ishant Sharma going full throttle on a grassy wicket with plenty of bounce, Test skipper Virat Kohli was forced to duck a few deliveries.
India’s newly appointed bowling coach Paras Mhambrey said in the video uploaded by thek BCCI that the players will have to really be prepared for such bouncy conditions, adding that it’s not just the batters who’ll have to work hard to get used to the conditions, but the bowlers too would need to work on their technique in order to hit “the right areas".
“I think we’ve got to be prepared for such kind of conditions (pace and bounce). When we walked in, we thought it would be sunny. But the moment we turned out at the ground (we got) overcast conditions… it’s always challenging from the bowlers’ perspective as well to kind of hit the right areas. These kinds of conditions we’ll get in the Test match and (we) should be able to exploit those conditions," Mhambrey added.
Batting coach Vikram Rathour was happy with the way the batters handled the bounce, saying the team was fortunate to get a chance to bat on a “fresh wicket with overcast conditions".
“Today was a centre-wicket practice session, and fortunately for us it was a fresh wicket with overcast conditions. Pretty challenging for the batters to bat on, so the way they went about it today I am extremely happy," said Rathour.
Seeing Kohli ducking a bouncer, Shreyas Iyer said, “I would say, it’s a bowlers’ delight to bowl on this wicket. There’s grass on the wicket and so much bounce… Virat Kohli’s ducking."
However, Ishant Sharma expressed that with the way Kohli and company played the pacers on Saturday, they would be able to negotiate the home team fast bowlers.
“It was damp initially, so it was moving a bit. But I felt that Jassi (Jasprit Bumrah) and (Mohd) Shami bowled pretty well. I think the batters played pretty well. They know what kind of bowlers they hope to play," said Ishant.
Earlier, India's Test vice-captain Rohit Sharma had suffered a left hamstring injury during a net session in Mumbai and has been ruled out of the test tour to South Africa.
Gujarat’s opening batter Priyank Panchal, who recently featured in the India A team tour of South Africa, has been drafted into the Test squad. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has named KL Rahul as Rohit Sharma's replacement as vice-captain of the Indian team for the Test series.
India's Test squad for South Africa series: Virat Kohli (Captain), KL Rahul (vice-captain), Mayank Agarwal, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Priyank Panchal, Shreyas Iyer, Hanuma Vihari, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Wriddhiman Saha (wicket-keeper), R Ashwin, Jayant Yadav, Ishant Sharma, Mohd. Shami, Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Shardul Thakur, Md. Siraj.
