ADELAIDE: Captain Rohit Sharma copped a nasty blow on the right forearm while facing throwdowns at the Adelaide Oval nets here on Tuesday, two days before India's all-important semifinal against England.
Rohit, who was among a handful of cricketers to opt for the optional nets here, was hit after a ball from one of the team's throwdown specialists nipped back and got big on the batter. Rohit looked in a lot of pain, gave up batting, used the magic spray and was immediately attended to by the support staff. He also attempted a hasty return to the nets and picked up his bat, only to give up after just one ball. It was back to spending some time with an icepack next, with mental conditioning coach Paddy Upton in tow.
After a bit more than a half hour, Rohit attempted a return. He started gingerly against some easy throwdowns before going on to complete his session in what should come as welcome news for the team. At the end of it all, Rohit went and had a chat with the throwdown specialist, D Raghavendra, who would have been a relieved man that the injury did not immediately look too serious.
Rohit is seeking a bit of form as well, having failed to replicate his usually fluent, languid style of strokeplay in these conditions, with the result that India have often got off to nervy, quiet starts in the Powerplays. India will be hoping Rohit has saved his best for last in this World Cup.
Karthik does the hard yards
Rohit was one among only three players from the main squad who chose to train ahead of the big game, the others being Dinesh Karthik and Hardik Pandya, along with reserve bowlers Shardul Thakur and Mohammed Siraj.
All eyes were on Karthik, naturally, given the constant musical chairs between him and Rishabh Pant, who played in India's previous game against Zimbabwe, ostensibly because the team wanted to give the left-hander some game time ahead of the knockouts.
Australian legend Ian Chappell recently wrote in his column that Pant's exclusion was "inexcusable". "If you ask opponents about dangerous players, his name will always be high on the list," Chappell had written. "Another factor in Pant's favour is his ability to take an attack apart at any time during an innings, not just at the death. If there's any doubt about his selection, Pant's keeping is easily the best in the Indian squad."
Be that as it may, two days before the semifinal it was Dinesh Karthik who spent a considerable amount of time batting in the nets, no doubt adding to the speculation over who will actually front up against England.
Kohli vs leg-spin and other head turners
Coach Rahul Dravid said after the Zimbabwe game that Pant's main task was to take on the leftarm spinner operating at that time. Some leading opposition spinners remaining in the knockouts take the ball away from the right-handers, like Adil Rashid, Ish Sodhi, Mohammad Nawaz, Shadab Khan and Mitchell Santner. Whenever India have not played Pant, they have toyed with the idea of sending the left-handed Axar Patel up as a floater to negate this threat. Also, will playing Pant mean pushing Pandya lower down the order to more of a finisher's role?
Watch out too for the Adil Rashid-Virat Kohli tussle in the semis. Among the five bowlers to have dismissed Kohli the most times across formats, three will be available in the semifinal: leggie Rashid (dismissed Kohli 9 times across formats), seamer Ben Stokes (9) and off-spinner Moeen Ali (10).
Rashid, incidentally, can boast of dismissing Kohli 4 times in 10 Tests, thrice in 8 ODIs and twice in 11 T20Is. Will Kohli be wary of him in this format in a crunch game?
Kohli incidentally put up an Instagram post of batting in the MCG nets, captioned "Enjoying the process", to which former England player Kevin Pietersen retorted: "Please have a day off Thursday, bud!"
No doubt India still have a way to go before they firm up their plans, but in a semifinal they would like to negate all surprise factors beforehand. For now, they will be keeping fingers crossed that their captain is fit and available.
