A black-soil pitch scuffed up by spike marks creating black spots on the full-length area on either side, slightly damp with a tinge of grass, greeted India at their first pre-season camp that began on Friday at the MA Chidambaram Stadium.
India, who are scheduled to face Bangladesh in the first Test here starting September 19, have a busy schedule ahead of them. With as many as 10 Tests lined up in the next four months, the pre-season camp was a clear reflection that it wasn’t just preparation for the Bangladesh series, but also for the upcoming fixtures against New Zealand (3 Tests) at home and Australia (5 Tests) away.
Although the nets at the MAC ‘B’ stadium are generally used for training purposes, India chose to use the spare centre-wicket at the main ground for their camp. The session began with Rohit Sharma, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill and Virat Kohli batting in the two nets. The black soil pitch was allotted to face the spinners and on the far side, pacers including Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj lined up.
With Bangladesh having a good combination of attack, India have even chosen their net bowlers accordingly. With Shakib Al Hasan, Taijul Islam – two contrasting left-arm spinners in Bangladesh ranks — and New Zealand having Ajaz Patel, Mitchell Santner and Rachin Ravindra in the mix who all offer different challenges in terms of trajectory and release points, India’s choice of net bowlers made for an interesting move.
Apart from Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel, here they had Tamil Nadu’s S Ajith Ram, M Siddharth and P Vignesh (all Slow Left Orthodox). And with off-spinners posing plenty of questions to them off-late, apart from R Ashwin, the batsmen fronted up against Tamil Nadu’s Lakshay Jain and Mumbai’s Ashwin-clone Himanshu Singh.
India batsmen’s plan against the spinners mostly centred around using the feet and bringing out the sweeps and reverse-sweeps. Time and again, batsmen used the conventional and paddle sweep to deliveries that landed on the rough outside off-stump. And at times when it landed in the line of the stumps, they brought out the reverse-sweeps. In the morning session that extended till 12 pm, apart from Rohit, Jaiswal, Gill and Kohli, Jadeja, Ashwin, Bumrah and Siraj had a long outing with the bat.
