SOMSHUVRA LAHA

JOHANNESBURG: India returned to training after taking some days off post their series loss to South Africa in Centurion even as their counterparts chose to extend their party till Sunday. The Highveld sun has been beating down hard on the Wanderers and the pitch looks a lot less lush but India would be wary of this venue’s notoriety as a haven for seamers and fast bowlers.

The exact reason isn’t known yet but Shardul Thakur and Navdeep Saini’s arrival on Saturday evening could be attributed to this. On Sunday, both were seen bowling full steam at their seniors, with Saini almost getting the ball to rise awkwardly on a few occasions. There is little to play for apart from the cliched pride bit but India looked focused on getting their act right.

Catching is one of the areas India looked far inferior to South Africa and so it wasn’t surprising to see them spending a long time on it. After fielding Wriddhiman Saha and Parthiv Patel in Cape Town and Centurion, a new wicket-keeper at Wanderers can’t be ruled out, especially going by the effort put in by Dinesh Karthik. Karthik was asked to keep to balls thrown at three rubber stumps placed at different positions on the pitch, the idea being to make the wicket-keeper as much alert as possible to all sorts of edges.

KL Rahul was hit on his left knee by a delivery from Ishant Sharma, prompting team physio Patrick Farhart to tend to him at the nets immediately. Though he returned to batting, Rahul was