TimesofIndia.com in DUBAI: After a two-day break, the Indian cricket team was back to business as they had their first training session after the win (against Pakistan) on Sunday. The Men in Blue assembled at the International Cricket Council (ICC) Academy and trained for well over two hours under the lights.
Right from the start of the session, where players warmed up by playing football, doing laps of the ground and shuttle runs, captain Rohit Sharma took it easy and didn’t participate in any strenuous physical activity. He stayed with the team before the nets but largely remained in the background as the rest trained at full intensity.
An hour into the session, Rohit started jogging gently under the watch of Strength & Conditioning coach Soham Desai but didn’t seem to move freely. The skipper did some damage to his hamstring in the game against Pakistan and while he assured that it was okay, the movements on Wednesday suggested otherwise.
Rohit didn’t even face any gentle throwdowns and only did some shadow batting during his numerous discussions with head coach Gautam Gambhir and other members of the coaching staff. The game against New Zealand is still some time away (on Sunday) and the Indian camp would hope the captain is good to go for the last group game of the Champions Trophy.
Crisp Kohli, intense Shami
Fresh from a hundred, Virat Kohli was at his crisp best when he batted for over an hour. He hit the ball long and looked in control while playing the cover drives too. The right-hander faced a mix of spin and seam and also faced throwdowns to break the monotony.
Apart from Rohit, there was some concern around Mohammed Shami as well as the seamer played two games with very little gap and went off briefly in the match against Pakistan to get his ankle treated. There were however no visible signs of any discomfort on Wednesday when he bowled full tilt to the likes of Kohli, Rishabh Pant, Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul and got constant feedback from bowling coach Morne Morkel, who rejoined the team after a personal emergency forced him to fly back home.
The entire team looked in good spirits throughout the session and there was a lot of banter during their unique catching game right after the warm-up. India have already booked a semis spot after winning their first two games and would now look to maintain the unbeaten run before the knockouts.