For Dubai decks, batters reduce sidearm practice time

Dubai: On a cool Wednesday evening, three pitches were laid out at the ICC academy nets for the Indian batters to practice on ahead of their third league match against New Zealand.

KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer took guard in the first net to face spinners. In the second, Virat Kohli marked his guard before switching with Rishabh Pant every few minutes to face fast bowling. At the third, there was less activity as India’s three sidearm specialists lay in wait for the players to turn up.

It’s been a common trend all through India’s training sessions in Dubai during the Champions Trophy. The regular batters have preferred facing bowlers more and cut down on time against the throwdown specialists. Kohli practiced against a number of academy spinners before the Pakistan match.

The sidearm device ubiquitous in net sessions manipulates swing and speed of the ball with a simple flick of the wrist, helping batters train effectively against high pace. The Indian team has three of them Raghavendra, Dayanand Garani and left-armer Nuwan Seneviratne. All used extensively by the batters and well appreciated.

But the pitches in Dubai, where play all their matches are slow and better for spin bowling. There is a conscious effort to design net sessions where players are facing quality spin bowling in the nets.

Every time Kuldeep Yadav floated one up, KL Rahul would see if he could bring out the reverse sweep. He couldn’t execute the shot all the time, but he would not stop trying. Shreyas Iyer had shown the courage to use the reverse sweep, in the match against Pakistan, even though the shot doesn’t come naturally to him.

“I took some time, and then once my eyes were set, I thought that sweep and reverse sweep would have been a great option to put them (spinners) on the back foot. And I think that worked pretty well for me,” Iyer said.

By training with more purpose and in anticipation of what may be thrown at them next, India’s experienced batters have raised the ante in the nets. It’s an improvement from how India trained, the last time there was an ICC event here in Dubai.

“We were at an optional practice session at the ICC Academy before the Afghanistan game in the 2021 T20 World Cup. Only three or four batters turned up, and they were playing against our slingers, who were going 140–150 kmph,” ex India fielding coach R Sridhar wrote in his book. “I asked MS (Dhoni), ‘Who is the guy in Afghanistan who is going to bowl so quick tomorrow? Can we bring more specificity to our preparations? We should be practicing sweeps and reverse sweeps to unsettle their spinners’.”

Come Sunday, India will be facing a battery of Kiwi spinners led by Mitchell Santner’s left-arm spin as well as the off-spin of Michael Bracewell and Glenn Philips. No wonder the batters made the most of batting against India’s full strength spin bowling turnout.

Against pace too, Kohli had an extensive session facing Mohammed Shami, Harshit Rana and Arshdeep Singh. Many experts believe the feel for the native eye while facing a bowler from a run-up is different to facing a side-armer. The side-armer’s release point can often be higher as well.

Kohli completed his training session by taking a round to test his timing against Raghvendra’s razor-sharp slingers, but not until he was convinced that he could take on everything the match would throw at him.