MELBOURNE: KL Rahul was in the middle of the second nets at the Melbourne Cricket Ground with Yashasvi Jaiswal on Sunday morning. He was taking turns with the opening partner and on one such occasion, he stopped the youngster and had a long chat with Jaiswal.
The Mumbai batter, on his first trip Down Under, has blown hot and cold so far. He, although scored a century in the second innings of Perth, since then has struggled to spend time in the middle. Here, at the MCG, on what Akash Deep described as “low and slow surfaces” Jaiswal was facing India’s first-choice pace attack — Jasprit Bumrah, Akash Deep, Nitish Reddy and Mohammed Siraj. And clearly, Jaiswal was all over the place.
The 22-year-old switched between batting inside and outside the crease while not getting in line with the delivery to play with a straight bat. Oftentimes, he would go back and forth on whether to get on the front foot and ended up playing length deliveries awkwardly. Rahul, in the middle of nets before going for one of his many stints, would pull up the youngster and have a long chat with him. Watching from the outside, it seemed like he was talking about how the bat was coming down and where he was meeting the ball.
Jaiswal, especially, while facing Bumrah was getting hurried by the senior pacer as he was non-committal on how to play the delivery. However, to others, he confidently batted outside the crease while getting on front foot with ease. Again and again, he was tentatively pushing away from the body while facing length deliveries from Bumrah. This time, Kohli, who was facing the throwdowns in the adjacent net, pulled Jaiswal aside and had a talk with the youngster.
From the time he made his debut, whether it is Rohit Sharma or Kohli or Rahul, the seniors have been fiercely protective of Jaiswal, not just because of the journey he has had but also because of what he is capable of. In his short career so far, Jaiswal has shown enough proof to make one understand why. “I won't say anything on Jaiswal. Everyone is talking about him. Let him play. He is playing well, it's good for us and he is in good form. I am not going to say much more than that. Itna bas hai abhi ke liye (this is enough for now),” Sharma had said earlier this year during the home Test series against England.
Here in Australia, they were doing the same, for they knew what Jaiswal brings to the table and why he is important for the team. And it is not just the seniors, when he got to the other end, head coach Gautam Gambhir was on his ears as well. In the stint after, Jaiswal started leaving the balls more regularly. It seemed like he was consciously trying to trust the bounce and leave balls off length while meeting the ones he have to play under the eye. Almost after every delivery, he was even shadow practicing the same. It was when he moved to the nets where spinners bowled, Jaiswal unleashed himself to play some shots.
Rohit injury scare
Even as Jaiswal, Shubman Gill and others tried to work on things they had to, Sharma took a blow on his left knee while facing throwdowns. The ball didn’t bounce as much as he expected and hit him in the knee. In pain, Sharma walked out of the nets. For the next half or so, he could be seen resting with a wrapped knee and an ice pack over it. A while later, he could be seen walking normally.
Similarly, Akash Deep also got hit on the nets, but the pacer cleared the air saying that there was nothing to worry about his or Sharma’s blow. “Such blows are common when you play cricket," Akash Deep told the reporters. "I think this (practice) wicket was for white ball which is why the ball kept low at times. But these blows are common in training. There are no major concerns because of that."
The Indian team has had a couple of days of intense training ahead of the Boxing Day Test and will have a rest day on Monday. They, meanwhile, have another training session two days out but it would be an optional one. The day before the match, which is Christmas Day, is in all likelihood another rest day before India get on the field in front of a packed MCG crowd on December 26.
As things stand, the surface seems to have a greenish tinge with recent records suggesting that there will be a lot of assistance for pacers. However, one will have to wait and see how the pitch looks on December 25 to understand what to expect over the last five days of cricket in 2024.