Published: Jun 10, 2017, 07:06 PM (IST)
Edited: Jun 10, 2017, 07:06 PM (IST)
There is hardly anyone in the current Indian team, who works on his own batting harder than skipper Virat Kohli. He has encountered technical problems outside the off- stump and perhaps that is one of the reasons he opted for throw-downs against red duke ball, an effort to counter swing. It was an out of the box training session for Kohli, who walked first into the nets on the eve of India’s knockout clash against South Africa on Sunday. He walked into the middle net where fielding coach R Sridhar, throw-down expert Raghavendra and batting coach Sanjay Bangar were giving throw-down. It was seen that Bangar was giving throw-downs with a red ball dukes used for Test matches.
It is not a normal sight to see batsmen taking red ball throw-downs before ODIs. The logic behind taking red ball throw-down is that it will deviate in air throwing various challenges. Kohli was seen tackling incoming and outgoing deliveries along with extra bounce. The white ball does not swing much and if one wants to practice batting against swing bowling, one needs to have a few hits against the red ball. Sridhar and Raghavendra however gave throwdowns with white ball.
After 25 minutes of practice, Kohli then faced Umesh Yadav at paper’s nets followed by a short session against spinners. Yuvraj Singh rolled his arm over and got one to bounce from the spot. Yuvi had a wry smile and Kohli was seen telling him, “Match pe paata hoga (It will be a flat deck for the match)”.
Anil Kumble devoted his maximum time behind Ravichandran Ashwin, keeping a close tab on his bowling. Later he was seen helping Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya with spot bowling which would enable him to hit the right length.
Last but not least, during the whole course of time, both captain and coach were not seen interacting with each other. It could be purely coincidental that Kumble came back to spinners nets some 15 minutes after Kohli left the nets having taken a second round of throw-down from Bangar this time with white ball.
