BACK TO BUSINESS
Team India will look to salvage some pride in the 3rd and final Test at Johannesburg
Johannesburg, Jan. 21: Looking to salvage pride in the third Test beginning here on Wednesday, team India got down to business at the Wanderers on Sunday with a practice session that lasted just under four hours.
India had lost the first Test in Cape Town by 72 runs, and then were beaten in the second match at Centurion by 135 runs to surrender an unassailable lead.
The players enjoyed three days off after that hurtful loss, taking time to visit various safari and theme parks in and around Johannesburg.
On Sunday, they were back sweating in the nets, in a bid to end this series with their heads held high as the world's no.1 Test ranked side.
Noticeably, skipper Virat Kohli, who had a fiery press conference in aftermath of the Centurion loss, was in a jovial mood as he chatted around with his teammates and local net bowlers during practice.
After a customary warmup game of football, the players got down to working on their skill sets.
Fielding coach R Sridhar was the first to put in a serious shift, with Parthiv Patel, KL Rahul and Ajinkya Rahane working together as the slip cordon. Later, Rohit Sharma and Dinesh Karthik joined in as the trio moved to batting nets. On practice wickets, Rahul, Murali Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara took first strike against the net-bowling duo of Shardul Thakur and Navdeep Saini, who were confirmed arrived at the team hotel late on Saturday evening. The nets were arranged as pacers, throw-downs and spinners respectively, and Pujara duly smacked the local spinner for what can only be described as two sixes.
Vijay and Rahul also opened up in the spinbowling nets, and hit a few big shots. Prominently, Vijay hit Ravindra Jadeja out of the park and then was bowled the very next ball, with a bit of cheeky banter between the two.
R Ashwin bowled to them in the same nets as well. Rahul suffered a blow to his left knee during the first stint and put an ice pack on it. He batted again though, shrugging off any worries for the moment. Interestingly enough, Rahane — left out of the playing XI for the first two Tests — padded up next and lined up along with Kohli and Hardik Pandya in what could be the suggestive middleorder in the upcoming third Test. The all-rounder opened up with some big hits as per his natural style of play.