The Indian team management, in the words of their medium pacer Akash Deep, isn’t concerned with the injury worries of their captain Rohit Sharma ahead of the fourth Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). The Indian captain was struck in the knee during the practice before needing some physio attention.
Akash Deep also took a blow while batting. The Nagpur-born seems to be settling for the middle-order role, with KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal cementing their places in the opening spot with Shubman Gill and Virat Kohli at the following steps. Rohit began his net practice against the spinners and looked to play a pull shot.
It didn’t come off well, and the ball cleared the top edge of the pad and hit him on the knees. Looking for some treatment, he elevated the leg and put an ice pack on it before walking around and having a little chat with the teammates and coaches.
The trip of the Indian team to Melbourne has already been really eventful. It started with Virat Kohli at the airport, where there was a misunderstanding with the Australian media on filming his children on arrival, while Ravindra Jadeja was at the MCG and didn’t take questions in English.
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Akash Deep turned for the presser on December 22 and felt that neither of the blows to him or the captain was major ones, but he reckoned that the pitches offered to them were of ODI games.
“Such blows are common when you play cricket. I think this (practice) wicket was for the white ball, which is why the ball was kept low at times. But these blows are common in training. There are no major concerns because of that.” The Bengal pacer expressed.
Akash Deep looks back at heroics of saving follow-on in Brisbane
Rishabh Pant, the aggressive wicket-taker batter of the side, got so much attention in the net session while talking for nearly an hour with the head coach, Gautam Gambhir. Prasidh Krishna, who was in the A-squad before being brought into the main squad, looked sharp as he enjoyed six wickets against the Australia A side.
The series has been standing still at 1-1 with two Tests to go. If the Indian side had given this score line after the first three games in Perth, Adelaide, and Brisbane, they would have grabbed it without a single noise. The MCG had a drastic change in character though, since the last visit to India with its conversion to a bowling-friendly surface.
Akash Deep enjoyed a great last week at the Gabba with his contribution for the last wicket to save the follow-on before belting the very next delivery of Pat Cummins into the wide long-on stand.
“At the time we come in to bat, scoring those 20-30 runs is very important. My mindset is to contribute in whatever way I can, and that day my mindset, I didn’t think about saving the follow-on, I just didn’t want to get out. And when you do well from that situation, it gives confidence, and that’s the confidence that the team was able to see in me, and I was really happy.” Akash Deep highlighted.
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The 28-year-old had a close battle with Smith going past his batting edge on multiple occasions as the later praised the bowler both on and off the field.
“At the time, I felt like, the skill with which I bowled, a lot of the times he was getting beaten on the inside edge and the outside edge, and I felt that sometimes ‘what is this luck that I have, I can’t get him out‘. But then I realized that the wicket was not in our hands. What we have in our hands is just bowling well. Bowling in the right areas.” Akash Deep concluded.