The Indian team underwent a rigorous session of yoga under Yoga guru Sukhder Kumar along with regular fitness training on Day Three of the conditioning camp.
KOLKATA: The third day of the five-day conditioning camp of Team India saw a role reversal in terms of the scheduling with the morning session, which was meant for fielding and catching practice, being devoted to batting and bowling.
The evening session saw the players concentrate on their physical fitness.
The sizable crowd that had gathered at the stadium was treated with some aggressive stroke play by local hero Sourav Ganguly, who looked to carry on his form. The former skipper gave rookie leg-spinner Piyush Chawla some demoralising lessons hitting him for a huge six, the ball landing in the stands. Out-of-form Virendra Sehwag also looked comfortable against the likes of S Sreesanth and Munaf Patel.
Among the bowlers, Zaheer Khan maintained a consistent line and length and Patel was also impressive. Sreesanth, however, was not seen too much with the ball.
Sachin Tendulkar, who twisted his ankle on the first day resulting in a minor injury, was seen doing some light batting practice. He, however, refrained from batting in the centre pitch but there was no sign of any discomfort.
Bengal pacer Ranadeb Bose, however, struggled with the ball on Friday as he was treated with contempt by most of the batsmen, especially Sehwag.
The session also saw some of the players like Manoj Tiwari, Yuvraj Singh and Tendulkar do some stretching exercises conducted by renowned yoga Guru from Malaysia Sukhdev Kumar.
The evening session started a bit later than the scheduled time owing to the afternoon heat and saw fielding coach Robin Singh running the gauntlet.
The entire session was conducted under the hawk eyes of newly hired team manager Ravi Shastri, who was also seen engaged in a discussion with Tendulkar, who came in to do some light fielding and batting practice in the second session as well. The players looked more or less comfortable with the ground fielding, except spinner Ramesh Pawar whose discomfort while running was more than evident. Needless to say, physiotherapist John Gloster will have his work cut out to bring the spinner in shape.
Earlier on Friday Yoga guru Sukhder Kumar was seen working extensively with the players. But the focus was mainly on stretching and other fitness regimes. The players did sit for a meditation session in batches, but that was for 15 minutes.
Once again Sukhdev gave special attention to Sachin Tendulkar helping him with his stretching to see that the master blaster regained his complete fitness.
Sukhdev stressed on the relaxation factor and performed various methods of “pranayam”.
The players were reminded of the importance of taking care of the mind along with the body. It is understood that the players were impressed with his methods and felt it would help in improving their focus and concentration.
Yesterday, Sourav Ganguly requested him to show a few stretching and cooling down techniques after nets and Sukhdev happily obliged spending some good 15 minutes with him.
Meanwhile, a groundsman at the Eden Gardens was injured when he was hit on the knee by a ball thrown by VRV Singh during the afternoon practice session. The incident occurred when the Indians cricketers were practising running between the wickets and V R V Singh was fielding.
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