After drawing the series against Australia, Team India is preparing for the next Sydney Test, which starts on January 7. On Saturday, Ajinkya Rahane & Co underwent an intense training session to ensure impeccable performance on the field.
The Cricket Control Council in India (BCCI) posted a video on Twitter in which players could be seen honing their shooting skills under the watchful eye of coach R. Sridhar. They randomly placed the ball on the field and played back to the stumps that were part of their exercise.
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“New Year. Renewed energy. What do you think about this for Josh?”, Wrote BCCI on Twitter.
Check out the video:
Substitute captain Ajinkya Rahane will continue to lead the team in the absence of Virat Kohli, who has returned home on paternity leave.
Meanwhile, on Friday, left arm T Nataraj was included in the Indian test team as a replacement for Umesh Yadav. The latter suffered a strain in the left calf muscle on Day 3 of the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne. BCCI, in a statement, said Yadav would not fully recover before the two remaining test matches and was excluded from the series.
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After a horrific show in the first Test, which saw visitors being packaged by 36 in the second round, India staged an epic turnaround in Kohli and the absence of Mohammad Shami to win the Boxing Day Test on December 29.
Test team from India team: Ajinkya Rahane (captain), Rohit Sharma (deputy captain), Mayank Agarwal, Prithvi Shaw, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Hanuma Vihari, Shubman Gill, Wriddhiman Saha (wicket keeper), Rishabh Pant (wicket keeper), Jasprit Bumrah , Navdeep Saini, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, R. Ashwin, Md. Siraj, Shardul Thakur, T Natarajan