Bangalore: The camp for the Indian cricketers in their lead-up to the Malaysian tri-series commencing on September 12 will begin at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) here, on Wednesday.

It will be unique in the sense that instead of a squad of 16 players training together, it would involve just five players training for three days before another set of five replaces them. "Having just five or six players at a time, ensures that all the players are optimally involved during training," a Board official said.

In the first batch of five players, vice-captain Virender Sehwag has replaced Ramesh Powar, who could not make it due to personal reasons. Powar would either join the second or third and final batch.

Ajit Agarkar, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammed Kaif and Irfan Pathan are the other players who will train with Sehwag for the next three days. Sehwag is also part of the last batch of players scheduled to train here from September 5 to 7. The last batch also includes skipper Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar. The players will have their morning session on the centre pitch in the KSCA (B) ground and the afternoons would be spent on fielding drills and in fine-tuning running between the wickets followed by a review session at the NCA.

On the eve of the camp, coach Greg Chappell, trainer Gregory King and bio-mechanist Ian Frazer spent time at the NCA, working out the modalities of the camp. Physio John Gloster is scheduled to join the camp at a later date.

The camp will conclude on September 7 when the last set of players will fly to Chennai to join the rest of the team for practice games against local sides on September 8 and 9. The team is scheduled to leave for Kuala Lumpur on September 10.

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