Getting drubbed by five wickets at Pune on what tuned out to be a seaming track Team India and its rival Sri lanka underwent rigorous practice session at JSCA stadium on Thursday evening. Members of both the teams were allotted different timings for practice under fairly cloudy weather condition and strong breeze.
Members of the Team India led by captain cool and local lad MS Dhoni conducted some intense drills about fielding and bowling, especially of spin, first in the evening followed by the Sri lankans. Though the team lost the inaugural game of the three match series due to speedsters of Sri lanka but it is likely the JSCA pitch would offer a fair turner for the players.
Chances are more that India would play another spinner in the playing fleet on Friday for the day-night encounter and experienced ‘turbanator’ Harbajan Singh might be fielded in to check quite inexperienced Sri lankan squad. The visiting team is the most inexperienced side ever that toured India and barring caption Dinesh Chandimal, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Dilhara Fernando and Thisara Perera none have much exposure of international duets.
The Indian team management is in no mood to give much importance to the batting collapse at Pune against the seamers of lanka perhaps considering its perfect show down under. India had whitewashed Australia 3-0 in the shortest format of the game and this should come as confidence booster as far as handing the pacers is concerned.
The Pune show is being perceived more as ‘adjustment problem’ looking at the slowness and lowness the track produced during the first match with seam movement. That was the reason behind as many as four top order batsmen of India got out after hitting their leading edges.
Nevertheless pressure to win the match here and make the last one at Visakhapatnam on February 14 alive was seen clearly on the home team members. Dhoni and team mentor Ravi Shastri were locked into some serious conversations taking Harbhajan Singh along.
In any case the team would not like to lose home series just head of big ticket tournaments lined up in the form of Asia Cup in Bangladesh and T-20 World Cup in India. Series defeat, if happens, would be more questioning considering the green-horn Sri lankans as opponent.
Another move by the team India that would be looked into closely is the inclusion on young sensation in the form of Pawan Negi into the playing eleven. Negi is a part of the team selected for Asia Cup and World T-20 and has got the best price deal at recently concluded IPl auctions.