Men In Blue Work On Their Fielding

Vadodara: Team India may no longer have the services of bowling and fielding coach for the India-Australia ODI series, but coach Gary Kirsten ensured that India make considerable ground before D-day tightening up one of their weakest aspect of the game. Skipper MS Dhoni had time and again in the past referred to how India lacks a lot in that department. Now, whether India's fielding takes an about turn towards improvement without a fielding coach is to be seen. But still they are trying their best to make up and even Ashish Nehra is pitching in giving catching and fielding practice to his fellow pacers once through with their bowling.

Dhoni was seen limping on the ground right after the batting session in the net.
at the Reliance Stadium on Friday Dhoni, who facing Munaf Patel, got hit on his
left leg.

He left the nets immediately and applied ice pack near the knee. He did walk to the wicket along with Atul Bedade later on but again limped back to the dressing room. The seriousness of the injury was not immediately known.

The focus seemed to be more on ground fielding and hitting the stumps on the run.
Back in the fold after his injury Virender Sehwag, Praveen Kumar, Munaf Patel and Ravindra Jadeja all made Kirsten smile as they hit the stumps more often than not. Ishant Sharma and Ashish Nehra missed quite a few times but that was okay

A little later pacers Munaf Patel, new comer Sudeep Tyagi, Ishant and Praveen got some catching and fielding practice from Nehra as well. Yuvraj Singh, who missed the Champions Trophy in South Africa last month, too joined them. He fielded for a while before engaging in some stretching exercises towards the end. After an hour of fielding, Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar padded up for batting as Ishant and Praveen prepared to bowl. Sehwag played few defensive shots to begin with but was soon in his elements. And who said Sehwag's footwork is suspect? On Friday he was seen jumping out of the crease and playing some fierce drives all around the nets,

While on his hitting spree, Sehwag was also hit on his chest by an Ishant delivery But luckily no damage was done and Sehwag was back in rhythm again.

Sachin, on the other hand, was seen practising the straight drive for about half an hour as Kirsten kept on throwing pitched up deliveries to him. The area on either side of the sightscreen is a very productive area in terms of runs whether it is a five day one-day or T20 game.

And if Tendulkar gets that shot right on Sunday India can look at a 350 plus total on what looks like a batting paradise.

If the batting order dup ing the net session here is any indication to go by then we should see Sachin and Sehwag coming out first. The two master blasters will then be followed by Gautam Gambhir, Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina.

The team practised for about three hours in the afternoon after arriving in the city in the morning. The only person who, during the long practice session, was trying to get a feel of cricket at the highest order is UP pacer Sudeep Tyagi. For most of the period Tyagi looked lost and hardly communicated with anyone.

But by what he has shown in the domestic circuit, one thing is sure that Tyagi believes in the dictum of his performance speaking for himself.