India’s first training session under lights is an occasion to savour but important decisions await team ahead of crucial second Test
ADELAIDE: The delayed red-eye flight to Adelaide seemed in limbo on its Singapore tarmac. The snaking queues had long passed their state of agitation and quieted down to uneasy repose when the momentary sighting of Gautam Gambhir made heads turn.
Border-Gavaskar Trophy
India’s coach was heading back to the scene of the action in Australia after a brief visit back home. Glances met, pleasantries exchanged and brief handshakes later, he retreated into his own world, down the vast corridors of one of the world’s busiest airports, but not before sending everyone’s cricketing pulse racing.
A few hours later and into the next day, in another continent, Gambhir stood quietly, first in the background and then in the second pacers’ nets, as India’s batters hit the ground running ahead of the crucial second Test against Australia.
The India-Australia Test in Adelaide will see a lot of firsts!
Only, this wasn’t an ordinary nets session. Heaving hordes tumbled in to catch a glimpse of their stars in action at a rare arm’s length. Adelaide, the city of vibrant colours, seemed tickled pink by the presence of India’s star cricketers.
It was a goodwill gesture, an open nets session to stimulate interest, but the practice session turned into concert-level frenzy. Security had to be called in at times to clear restricted areas. A thousand selfies were clicked. Excited teenagers called up friends asking them to rush over. Beating drums rent the air, and, of course, Virat Kohli soaked in all the hero worship.
“Sab mazey le rahey hai (Everyone’s having fun),” Rishabh Pant told Rohit Sharma in the adjacent nets at one point after having a rather hard time coping with Jasprit Bumrah, Akash Deep, Mohammed Siraj and Harshit Rana breathing fire with the pink ball. Rohit himself warned Abhishek Nayar at one point to not talk tactics in such a public view after explaining some front-foot trigger movements to the assistant coach.
Every block was cheered, every hit elicited a roar. Every victory for the bowler was celebrated. This was training as spectacle, nets as performance art.
Such is the level of frenzy the Indian team arouses away from home that Australia’s own open training session a couple of hours earlier seemed tepid in comparison, apart from minor injury scares to their struggling star batters Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne.
How India are preparing for the Pink-Ball Test vs Australia in Adelaide
Even without all the attention and cheery chaos, this would have been an important session, the team’s first with the pink ball in moist twilight conditions, that dreaded time when the lacquer-coated, fancy-coloured orb wobbles unpredictably to raise the fear of leaving batting collapses in its wake.
In Adelaide, where Australia have never lost a pink-ball Test, the surface tends to add fuel to the pink fire. No wonder India’s batters want more time out in the nets to size up the challenge. The first Test of the 2020-21 series saw them collapse to their lowest-ever Test score of 36 in the second innings, but it’s unlikely that the sour taste lingers, especially since India came back to win that series. This time it’s about consolidating the advantage after the remarkable comeback win in Perth.
Questions still linger about the team’s opening plans, and no doubt these will gain ground over the next few days. On Tuesday evening, Rohit Sharma and Rishabh Pant took first strike, even before the warm-ups. When nets resumed, though, Perth openers Yashasvi Jaiswal and KL Rahul began proceedings, and Rohit and Pant again batted in tandem. India’s captain may not be averse to batting in the middle order for the first time since 2019, but time – and conditions – will tell.
Also on Tuesday, Australia’s wicketkeeper Alex Carey took great pains to point out why the pink ball is so tough to spot, saying, “At times when the lights come on, it can be a little bit of a depth perception. You have to watch the ball as closely as possible, adapt as quickly as possible. At times from behind the stumps, it (the ball) can seem to have a bit of a (pink) glow… sort of a tail. They have a comet tail.”
Given the weird patterns of pink-ball Tests and the increasing uncertainty in players’ minds, it may be fair to term it a format all on its own, another oddity in modern cricket’s blend of styles. Here at the Adelaide Oval on Tuesday, though, the practicality of pink Tests didn’t seem to matter. Nothing did. The only star trails were left by India’s cricketers.
Will the festive air last if the team doesn’t do well starting Friday? Gambhir, standing quietly in the corner, seemingly unmoved by all the noise, may have been thinking the same thing.
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