India has started their preparations for a long Test season in the upcoming four months, as Virat Kohli, who missed the last home series against England due to personal reasons, makes his return along with their premier pacer, Jasprit Bumrah, who returns to the national side since the final of the T20 World Cup 2024.
India welcomes their wicket-keeping batter Rishabh Pant in the longest format after the Delhi-born missed the action in 2023 and made a quick and exciting comeback in the two white-ball formats of the game. He is eager to start his red-ball career from where he left off in Bangladesh.
The new head coach of the Blue Brigade, Gautam Gambhir, will be eager to forget the maiden ODI series defeat in Sri Lanka and make a fresh beginning to his first assignment at home with five Tests, including the three-match series against New Zealand.
Jasprit Bumrah goes full as India makes light practice in first training session
India’s Test squad arrived in Chennai on Thursday and trained in batches. The captain of the side, Rohit Sharma, addressed the huddle before going to the net, where he was joined by Virat Kohli as two of the batters faced the net bowlers on a specially made surface at either end of the square at the Chepauk stadium.
One pitch was made of black soil with so many footmarks being prepared at the full and good length area, while the other surface was made of red soil and had selective watering. The center wicket was full of grass, and India may look to try some pace-bowling-friendly tracks for the home Test matches to prepare for their Australia trip.
Along with Rohit and Kohli, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill, both of whom were coming on the back of their first-round stint in the Duleep Trophy 2024, worked on their batting. To mirror the threat of Shakib Al Hasan, the left-arm spinner, Tamil Nadu’s Ajith Ram and M Siddharth kept going at the home batters,
Varun Chakaravarthy was there in the net session with the 21-year-old off-spinner Himanshu Singh from Mumbai, who seems to have the same bowling action as Ravichandran Ashwin.
Jasprit Bumrah got his turn later in the day, as he went through some light fitness work in the practice before having a chat with India’s new bowling coach of the team, Morne Morkel. The left-arm pacer, Yash Dayal, who has been prepared to keep an eye on the Border Gavaskar Trophy, bowled in a session under the eyes of Gambhir and Morkel.
“Virat was there for 45 minutes, and Bumrah also bowled full throttle.” A local source revealed to PTI.
The former South African pacer also had a session with Akash Deep, who looked in good touch during the first round of the Duleep Trophy with nine wickets in the game, as they seemed to have a discussion around the seam movement of the ball and how the wrist position could be adjusted according to that.
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Pant had a thrilling session when he took on Dayal after being beaten on a few occasions, as he casually played the pick-up shot off his hips. The left-handed batter had a good time in Bengaluru in the first round of the Duleep Trophy. Even though he has featured for India in T20Is and ODIs since his recovery from the accident, it will be a different feeling when he takes the field on September 19 in the first game against Bangladesh.
Both the games are part of the World Test Championship (WTC) and will be important behind India’s qualification in the third successive final.