With his vulnerability against the short ball coming
to the fore once again, Bharat number four Shreyas Iyer trained with the aim of
overcoming his longstanding struggles ahead of the Cricket World Cup 2023 game
against Sri Lanka in Mumbai on Thursday.
None of the top-order guns – captain Rohit Sharma,
Virat Kohli and Shubman Gill – were in attendance for the optional session.
Iyer versus the short ball was the focal point. The team’s famed bowling
attack, which delivered a fabulous 100-run victory over England last Sunday,
also opted for rest.
Perched at the top of the World Cup points table and
with a spot in the semifinals virtually sealed for Rohit and Co, it is only
imperative that the team keeps ironing out the areas of concern along the way.
Iyer’s troubles against the short ball, combined with
the lack of big scores as the preferred No 4, is certainly something that the
team management and the player want to overcome and it was evident as far as
his approach to the session on Tuesday was concerned.
The right-handed batter, who is back to his home ground
that he shares with skipper Rohit, Suryakumar Yadav and Shardul Thakur in this
Indian squad for the World Cup, faced plenty of short balls from throwdown
specialists in the session that lasted for nearly two hours under the sun.
While he did face some local net bowlers to begin
with, the focus point of the session soon turned into having Iyer facing
innumerable short balls hurled at him by India’s throwdown specialists D
Raghavendra, the left-handed Sri Lankan Nuwan Seneviratne and batting coach
Vikram Rathour along with a few others.
Having long batting stints on either side of the strip
on which India will take on Sri Lanka, Iyer was also seen sporting a chest
guard while he kept on pulling and hooking the short balls.
To his credit, Iyer responded deftly with powerful
strikes, sending the ball into the stands or clearing the ropes mostly.
Towards the end, Iyer also had India head coach Rahul
Dravid feeding him throwdowns and for a change, the batting great also fed a
few deliveries to Iyer to drive while the bowling coach Paras Mhambrey watched
from a distance.
Also among the throwdown bowlers for Iyer was the team’s
fielding coach T Dilip, whose famous award ceremonies for the best fielder
after every match have become a unique feature that fans have been glued to.
Iyer fell to the short ball in Dharamsala as well as
the last game against England in Lucknow.
Apart from Iyer’s strenuous effort, all-rounder
Shardul Thakur also had a long batting session while the others in Ishan
Kishan, KL Rahul and Suryakumar had a regulation hit in the nets.
All-rounders Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja
did more batting practice than bowling.
PTI
