Gill ‘looking comfortable’ on return to nets in Canberra

Shubman Gill must have wanted to feel good about himself before he got down to work. At the start of India’s training session in Canberra on Friday, he went around to the back of the nets facility, where only throwdowns were possible, and that too from about 10 yards, and for the first few minutes, he was totally freestyling. Big booming drives. Lovely back foot punches.

After a little bit of this, he asked India’s assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate to help him drill down on his defence. Now the balls were coming down on a good length and he focused on meeting them under his eyes. Somehow the sound off the bat was louder than he was trying to whack them. That left thumb that he injured in Perth doesn’t seem to be giving him a whole lot of problems anymore.

Gill began with throwdowns from up close, then graduated to facing them off the sidearm and then capped it off by fronting up against Akash Deep and Yash Dayal at full speed. “He is batting right now and our physio will evaluate him and I will know his status after that,” the other assistant coach Abhishek Nayar said on Friday afternoon. “But from what I have seen, he is looking comfortable batting and he looks like he can bat [in a match]. He is batting in the indoor nets and we will know if he can play the practice match or not.”

India arrived in Canberra on Wednesday night to a group of fans waiting for them at the airport. Then they hit up the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for a little “how do you do,” and under significantly overcast skies that did in the end bring rain that lasted almost right through the training session, focused on the challenge of playing against the pink ball. India will ramp up prep for the second Test in Adelaide with a day-night match against the Prime Minister’s XI which is scheduled to start on Saturday, but the weather forecast for it is pretty poor. The first day of the two-day game might well get washed out.

Perhaps in anticipation of that, India’s batters got nice, long, sessions to get used to the pink ball and all the mischief it is capable of. Yashasvi Jaiswal had barely figured out what shot to play when he was rapped on the pads and he hated it. Standing there, with his legs crossed and his hand on his hip, he had to listen to Ravindra Jadeja gloat. “That ball swung away, didn’t it?” There was a hint of surprise in those words, and also of the challenge that now lies ahead of this team. Day-night Test matches are sometimes bowler-dominated affairs, especially in Australia.

“Whether it’s a pink ball or a red ball, the difference is really in the mind,” Nayar said. “Of course, there is a bit of difference between the two – the colour is different, there is more lacquer – and we are lucky that we have got six-eight days to get ready. When we were in Perth, too, we were training with the pink ball. Rohit [Sharma] was training [with the pink ball] too. So we have started our preparations. We will continue to focus on our game, and do what we need to do.”

India have only played four pink-ball Test matches so far, the last of which took place in March 2022. They will be back at the venue of 36 all out, but this time the vibe is completely different. The joy of Perth has seeped into the fringe players who are here as well, who began the day playing that game where you get a bunch of people around in a circle and try to keep a football from hitting the ground. Sarfaraz Khan had a bit of trouble with it and everybody piled on him, laughter ringing out over the delightfully intimate Manuka Oval, Sarfaraz himself joining in.

Rohit was waiting in the tunnels at the Optus Stadium, greeting every Indian player that was coming back on a high after that 295-run victory last week. His return – after becoming father to a second child – has lifted the team even higher. Rohit had already begun playing against the pink ball in Perth and he backed that up in Adelaide, though he looked a little rusty in between bringing out some of his signature shots – including a pull on one leg, which he took care to keep down.

“When Rohit Sharma is around, there’s a lot of laughing and joking around,” Nayar said, “So the morale and the environment is good. The morale is excellent anyway. Rohit wasn’t around initially, but he was very much with us [in spirit] all through. So there wasn’t much of a difference.”

With a chill in the air, a song on the speakers (Heat Waves by Glass Animals) and an image of Gandalf from Lord of the Rings frozen on the big screen, where all he could do was bob his head back and forth with a content smile (clearly he is a fan of the band), this felt like a session where the Indian team was slowly reacquainting themselves with the grind after a few well-deserved days off.

Rishabh Pant spent virtually all of it running around the outfield. KL Rahul did 100-yard sprints over and over again. Virat Kohli attracted the attention of the fans who had come over to watch and what they saw was a perfectionist who yelled out in frustration when his drives resulted in edges, delighted in meeting it off the middle soon after and threw a thumbs up at Mukesh Kumar when he got the ball past his edge.

Jaiswal, who perhaps did more work than most, switched priorities and tried his hand at fast bowling as training came to a close. Coming off a two-step run up from the boundary’s edge, he very nearly had Dhruv Jurel bowled on the leave, his hands flying to his head as the ball just whistled past the top of those bright yellow flexi cricket stumps. It didn’t seem like he enjoyed himself though. “Being a fast bowler is hard work, yaar,” he said to plenty of laughter and padded up again to face more throwdowns.