Raina faces 'tennis serves' to counter bounce

Suresh Raina is pulling out all stops to kill his inner demons by spending a lengthy time at the nets, trying to counter the rising deliveries by facing powerful "tennis serves".

Practising with wet tennis balls to counter the pace is an age-old concept but the training module adopted by the Indian team for Raina, who nearly batted against tennis serves for 45 minutes, is unique in its own way.

While the 'Two Tool Theory' getting throwdowns from a height was introduced by team’s support staff Raghavendra before Pakistan match in Adelaide, the current concept has been introduced by coach Duncan Fletcher to mentally prepare Raina for facing the Aussie quicks Mitchell Johnson and Mitchell Starc.

What caught the attention during Team India’s net session at the adjacent area outside Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) was Raina's unique practice method which also showed his desperation to end what can at best be termed as 'bumper problem'.

While one batsman practiced in the net allocated for pacers, one for spinners and other for throwdowns, Raina was at the extreme left net with coach Fletcher in tow with a tennis racquet and a ball in hand.

To everyone's surprise, Raina batted against Fletcher’s service.

The concept for using a tennis racquet and tennis serve is simple. Because tennis ball is very light in weight and if one uses the conventional throwdown stick (instrument used for leather balls), then it's difficult to get it zoom off the deck.

While a tennis serve on a grass turf will just kick up thereby ensuring that the batsman gets good practice against short stuff.

Fletcher was seen aiming at Raina’s body as the left-hander was trying to play the hook shot. He connected a few, missed a few and miscued some.

While Fletcher did this for 15 minutes, probably the Zimbabwean felt the need for a more powerful and younger arm, who could impart more power on those tennis serves.

In came skipper Dhoni and in ‘Pistol Pete’ style started unleashing some booming serves for Raina, who didn’t look comfortable at all.

Once between the session, Dhoni stopped serving and summoned Raina for a mid-pitch discussion.

Dhoni's serves had more power but he also gave some ‘wide bouncers', something that Starc normally bowls at the death. The entire exercise went about for 45 minutes. In the end, Shikhar Dhawan also faced tennis serves but it was at the maximum for 10 minutes.

The entire method has been devised to help Raina as some of the other batsmen practiced for short-balls against Raghavendra’s throwdowns with proper leather balls.

While Dhoni has time and again told the media not to make big deal of Raina's problems against short balls, today's net session was an indication how much it mentally affects a player when he struggles against a particular delivery.

Australian all-rounder James Faulkner said that teams do need to train against short balls in ODIs and he didn’t see anything extraordinary in some of the Indian players trying to counter bouncers.

"I think naturally, in One-day cricket, short pitched bowling is used. I don’t think it is going to be any different, be it India/Pakistan or any other opposition. They can train how they want to train, that is up to them."

When Faulkner was asked if short ball will play its part during the semi-final, the all-rounder was non-committal stating that they haven’t had discussions specific to weaknesses of Indian team.

"like I said before, a lot depends on the wicket. If there is bounce and carry, it depends on who you are coming up against. If you see a weakness you can try and expose. We haven’t spoken about the Indian team yet, it is only Monday. At the moment, we will just concentrate on training and get ready to go. We will have our group discussion later in the week," Faulkner said.