Ahead of India’s opening World Cup fixture against Australia in Chennai, the chatter has mostly revolved around Shubman Gill. The opening batter tested positive for dengue and is a touch and go for the game on Sunday. Rahul Dravid, India coach, said the team will wait till the last minute before taking a call.
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“Shubman Gill is feeling better. Much better than he was yesterday. We still have 36 hours to go, the medical team is constantly monitoring him. He isn’t ruled out of the game and we will see how he feels the day after tomorrow,” Dravid said on Friday.
As per reports, Gill started showing symptoms during the course of the week and alerted the BCCI medical team. Since then, he has been kept under constant watch.
India’s apprehension over his availability is valid given the form he’s in. Gill has scored 1764 runs this year at an average of 51.88. It includes seven centuries and six half centuries with highest of 208 runs in January. He was the leading run-scorer at the Asia Cup (302 runs). His last few innings have produced scores of 104, 74, 27*, 19, 58 and 67*.
Elsewhere in the practice session on Friday, Shreyas Iyer spoke to skipper Rohit Sharma at length about his batting including how to tackle short ball with emphasis on execution of pull and hook. Rohit provided some useful advice with some shadow batting while staying away from taking part in the nets session himself.
Suryakumar Yadav’s training session was filled with unique shotmaking and attacking approach to throwdowns.
“We know that his preferred route of scoring runs in the T20 format has been square of the wicket. He’s played a lot of cricket, scores a lot of runs square of the wicket, which makes him incredibly effective and absolutely a gun in T20 cricket.
“But in one-day cricket you’ve sometimes got to find other ways to play as well,” Dravid said on the day while trying to dissect Surya’s batting.
After the main nets, he shifted attention to another net strip to focus on his range hitting. In the range hitting, a batter is able to hit down the ground as well.
“We have also been chatting to him a little bit about finding different ways to score runs. He has to find other areas of the field to access, and credit to him, he’s working really hard, he is really developing other facets to his game as well,” said Dravid before the practice session.
Ishan Kishan, who could come in if Gill doesn’t recover in time, found it challenging to get the timing right on deliveries by Jasprit Bumrah. The seamer was in incredible form during the nets with some unplayable deliveries.
While Bumrah beat him time and again, Mohammed Siraj hurried him for pace on multiple deliveries. Kishan struggled against throw downs and lacked rhythm against Mohammed Shami’s four-step run-up deliveries.
On the bowling front, Kuldeep Yadav stayed away from action in the nets and instead took part in fielding and fitness drills.
Bumrah and Siraj bowled long spells with plenty of intensity. Bumrah especially was sharp against Virat Kohli and hit the right areas.
Off-spinner R Ashwin bowled continuously in the net session. A late inclusion to India’s squad following an injury to Axar Patel, Ashwin tried didn’t things and angles while bowling to Kohli, Kishan, Iyer, KL Rahul and SKY.
After bowling session, he put the pads on and shifted to the main ground. The 37-year-old looked high on energy despite the bowling session and was drenched as a result.
Based on the bowling session in the nets, it appears Bumrah and Siraj could open with Shami occupying the bench. The toss up will be between Shardul Thakur and Ashwin with the latter looking better.
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