Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah at nets© X (Twitter)
The stage is set. The preparations for the first Test between India and Bangladesh are underway at full throttle. With Rohit Sharma leading the pack, the Indian side will return to the longest format after a hiatus of six months, as they last faced England in a five-match series in March. The first match, which will begin from September 19, will be the first assignment of former South Africa pacer Morne Morkel as India's new bowling coach. On Friday, Team India adapted a different approach during it's first practice session.
As per a report by the Indian Express, under the guidance of head coach Gautam Gambhir and Morkel, Indian batters like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and Yashasvi Jaiswal used two nets to bat. The black soil pitch was given to the spinners while the pacers took the red soil pitch.
The pitch at the MA Chidambaram stadium in Chennai is known for favoring spin. Thus, the Indian side is experimenting with their options. India's bowling line-up consists of Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, and Axar Patel as the spin options while Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, and Yash Dayal have been included as the pacers.
The report further stated that India have also kept some interesting names as their net bowlers. Spinners like Tamil Nadu's S Ajith Ram, M Siddharth and P Vignesh were used in the nets. Pacer like Arpit Guleria, Gurnoon Brar, Yudhvir Singh, Vaibhav Arora, Simarjeet Singh, Gurjapneet Singh were also used as net bowlers.
It would be interesting to see how Rohit's side approaches the game against a Bangladesh side, which is on a high following its 2-0 Test series win over Pakistan recently.
Vital World Test Championship (WTC) points are at stake in the two-match series as India get ready for a a gruelling 10-match Test season, which also includes a three-Test series at home against New Zealand and the five-match Border-Gavaskar series later this year in Australia.
India are currently heading the table with 68.52 percentage points, while Australia are a close second with 62.50 percentage points.
Bangladesh have jumped to fourth spot with 45.83 percentage points following their 10-wicket win over Pakistan in the opening Test and their amazing fightback in the second Test where wicketkeeper-batter Litton Das scored a century to singlehandedly guide the side to a series triumph.