One-day wonder ready for battle in whites

At the nets, no stone was left unturned in fine-tuning this long-term solution. Midway through the throw-downs that coach Gary Kirsten was firing down, Gambhir called for a time-out. The two had a long conversation, where Gambhir looked like he was talking about his footwork. He then had a word with bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad and ended the day with another extended session with the mental conditioning coach Paddy Upton.

Cagey feeling

On the face of it Gambhir seemed unnecessarily cagey for someone who has been among the runs. But a bit of history can help understand the opener’s need to clear doubts.

Since his debut in 2004, Gambhir has played 14 Tests out of which 13 were in the first two years. After he made his debut in the series against Australia at home in November ’04, he didn’t miss a Test for a year. The team responsible for ending this streak in 2005 was Sri Lanka or, to be specific, Chaminda Vaas.

After satisfactory outings against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe away, Gambhir failed against Vaas’s guile at home. The left-arm pacer had the Indian opener’s number in the first two Tests, where Gambhir had scores of 0, 2 and 3. The batsman didn’t play a Test after that slump till December 2007.

Things could be different now, for Vaas isn’t the bowler he used to be. Earlier this year, in the tri-series in Australia, Gambhir scored 102 in a game in which Vaas went for 72 in 10 overs. The demons were defeated. But then, in the Asia Cup final, the scoreboard sent him a reminder of what lay ahead: G Gambhir c T Dilshan b Vaas 6.

As Gambhir takes guard against Vaas once again, the team management is doing all they can to ensure that there is no uncertainty in his footwork this time.