Team India coach pleased by pre-series preparations
India coach Gary Kirsten is pleased by the way his team is going about its’ preparations ahead of the four-Test series against Australia which begins October 9.
While Australia battles it out, in what will be its final practice match, against Board President’s XI in Hyderabad, the members of the Indian cricket team are busy gearing up for the Test series in order to win back the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
The Indian team has just ended a five-day preparatory camp at the M.Chinnaswamy Stadium at Bangalore, the venue of the first Test.
“We got time to work on our internal processes. We got five days of work and on Thursday, we also did team-building exercises. We have done different things and this is probably the first time we got so much time in the lead up to a series. We have prepared well,” Indian coach Gary Kirsten was quoted as saying.
Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma and Munaf Patel are the three seamers selected for the Australia tour and Kirsten seems happy with the way they have trained ahead of the Test series.
“Munaf has stepped up the plate; Ishant and Zaheer have bowled well. As for the team composition, we have thought about options like five bowlers for better luck or pick an extra seamer but, the team is pretty stable at the moment and there is no specific reason for change.”
Virender Sehwag skipped the final two days of the practice session, but the former South African batsman confirmed that the aggressive opener will be ready in time for the first Test. “Sehwag is down with a sore throat but he is fine.”
Another player who missed the entire training camp was Sourav Ganguly, who was the latest addition to the Indian squad. Kirsten however felt that it was imperative that the team thinks of performing as a unit rather than focusing on individuals who make up the composition of the team.
"We got a nice five days of work, and we used the maximum possible time for the preparation.” But the coach added that there’s the lighter side of practice as well, “Yesterday we tried to get away from cricket for a while, and had a bit of fun along with a team-building exercise."
The five-day preparatory camp for the India-Australia series has now concluded. The Indian team will reassemble in Bangalore on Monday in order to get ready for the first Test match between the two sides which begins October 9.