Sri Lanka had a serious practice session on Wednesday morning at the Vidarbha Cricket Association here
'Everyone is fit including support staff'
Demoralised and nearly defeated in the first Test at Kolkata despite taking the first innings honours, Sri Lanka had a serious practice session on Wednesday morning at the Vidarbha Cricket Association here. They tried to cover all the possible areas with even their wicketkeeper Niroshan Dickwella taking throw-downs from their batting coach Thilan Samaraweera only to get his sweep right and inexperienced opener Sadeera Samarawickrama HAD a long chat with senior pro Rangana Herath after his stint in the nets. The Sri Lankans are raring to go and have all their players in shape that prompted even their manager, former batsman Asanka Gurusinha to joke, "even the three former international players in the support staff – himself, Samaraweera and fast bowling coach Rumesh Ratnayake – are fit to play."
Arun's task cut out
It is Indian team bowling coach Bharat Arun who arranges net bowlers for his batsmen to face. When the Indians got down to business on Wednesday, Arun had quite a task getting the bowlers, especially fast bowlers, to bowl at the Indians. "Who is a fast bowler?" "Don't you want to bowl at the India players?" "Why don't you say if you want to bowl or not?" were often heard before Arun passed the balls to the young bowlers, some of them Vidarbha under-23 players. On one occasion, he even took back an old ball from a medium-pacer and asked him to bowl with a shining one.
Shankar, cynosure of all
Tamil Nadu all-rounder Vijay Shankar was the most sought out player during the Indian team's optional nets on Wednesday. Not so much in the Indian team as those watching him in the nets for the first time. Shankar has just earned his maiden national selection as a replacement for Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who is getting married this week, for the second and third Tests. Shankar, 26, went about his routine in the nets, first bowling medium-pace to the Indian top-order and then padding up and even taking batting advice from chief coach Ravi Shastri. Like Shankar, it was in this venue that his Tamil Nadu state-mate and opener Murali Vijay got his maiden national call-up, in 2008 against Australia. Then, Vijay drove down from Nashik, where he played a Ranji Trophy match against Maharashtra and straightaway made his Test debut after Gautam Gambhir was suspended for elbowing Shane Watson in the previous Test. However, it is unlikely that Shankar will make his debut here and is only to fill in the vacancy created by Bhuvneshwar.
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