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Indians get down to practice

Dhoni’s men put through fielding drill by Kirsten

Kirsten spends some time with Rohit Sharma
NZC mulling sending Indian players to different provinces for practice

Christchurch: A game of rugby and some fielding and batting drills comprised the strenuous three-hour workout the Indian cricket team went through ahead of the series against New Zealand that kicks off with a Twenty20 match on February 25.

The visitor practised at the picturesque Bert Sutcliffe grounds. Although Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s men are the Twenty20 World champion, they will bear in mind that they had been humbled by 10 runs by the resilient New Zealand during the inaugural championship at Johannesburg last September.

Warming up with a game of touch rugby, Dhoni’s men were put through the fielding drill by coach Gary Kirsten before they moved to the adjacent ground for a hit at the nets.

Kirsten spent some time with Rohit Sharma urging the youngster to get his front foot in the right place while driving the ball. Time and again, Kirsten walked up to the middle to guide Rohit with his bio-mechanics before he got his act right in the second session for a knock against Ishant Sharma and Irfan Pathan.

Sachin Tendulkar took the nets soon after, often walking up to Kirsten and asking him to pitch the ball in a particular position so that he could lean into his shots. Pace spearhead Zaheer Khan chose to go for a run alongside bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad, long after his teammates had wound up.

Practice matches

Meanwhile, to fulfil its commitment of arranging a warm-up match for the Indians before the first Test, New Zealand Cricket (NZC) is mulling sending them to different provinces for practice.

India had agreed to extend its Test series from two to three matches on the request of NZC and in lieu of that, it had demanded some practice for the players, who are not part of the ODI squad.

Six Indians — Rahul Dravid, V.V.S. Laxman, Amit Mishra, M. Vijay, Dhawal Kulkarni and L. Balaji — are expected to play in New Zealand’s domestic circuit before the first Test begins on March 18.

The NZC Chief Executive, Justin Vaughan, said they were making plans to fulfil their commitment.

“India have bent over backwards to accommodate our wish for three Tests so we have to give them some warm-up. I said to them ‘we won’t leave you in the lurch, we will give you some decent warm-up,’ and one way or the other we will honour that,” Vaughan said.

“Dravid and Co. are pencilled to play the State championship round that runs from March 6 to March 9. Which side they play in would either be a “contestable process” or made by ‘random allocation,”’ Vaughan was quoted as saying by the Dominion Post.

Windfall

India’s tour of New Zealand is going to fetch NZC a windfall with more than $25 million expected from a multimillion-dollar deal for television rights.

NZC is likely to pocket $one million each for the 22 days the Indians are to take the field.

Vaughan did not give out the exact details but admitted a tour by India generates “many times” more income than tours by Australia, South Africa and England.

“I doubt we’ve had a bigger year than the one that’s in front of us,” Vaughan said adding, it was even bigger than the one they had from the Cricket World Cup, which was around $20m. — PTI

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