Ishants ankle hurts India warm-up

Paceman does not bowl during practice,is ruled out of second tour game starting

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Pragyan Ojha was probably offside,but no one cared. After the ball had fortuitously found its way to him,through a clutch of static defenders,Ojha let fly with a vicious swing of his right foot. Between the posts,Ishant Sharma ducked to compress his 65 frame into as small a target as possible to avoid getting hit,and managed to escape with only his reputation as a goalkeeper suffering any harm.

All morning,the Indians had been hard at practice. One set of players bounded about near the Fingleton scoreboard completing their outfield drills. At the other end of the ground,the senior batsmen took catches,with Sachin Tendulkar dislodging Rahul Dravid from first to third slip. Through all this,Ishant had been a peripheral presence coming in and out of the dressing room,having consultations with physio Evan Speechly,taking a few high catches and going in goal during the football game to avoid any undue exertion.

Doubts remain over the fitness of his ankle ahead of the second warm-up game starting at the Manuka Oval on Monday,or indeed for the length of the tour,hung like a dark cloud over Indias training session. That Ishant didnt bowl at the nets only increased speculation.

Media manager GS Walia confirmed that the fast bowler wouldnt take part in the three-dayer against the CA Chairmans XI,but rubbished fears about his participation in the Test series. The physio is working on him. The doctor has advised him rest till Monday. Strengthening exercises are going on, he said. There is no question of cover when he is fit.

Ishant wasnt the only bowler who didnt roll his arm over. After strenuous fitness and fielding workouts,Umesh Yadav and Ravichandran Ashwin gave nets a miss. Ojha was the only bowler to plug away for an extended period of time,with Zaheer Khan,Abhimanyu Mithun and Vinay Kumar sending down brief spells.

The batsmen,however,were hard at work,facing an assortment of throwdowns from other batsmen and members of the support staff,constantly moving from net to net to try and escape the distracting chatter of a large group of fans clustered around the perimeter fence to watch their heroes.

Tendulkar spent close to an hour facing DGVI Raghavindraa,the newly appointed throwdown expert from the NCA. Ex-coach Gary Kirsten always stood still while throwing balls untiringly at the Indian batsmen. Raghavindraa,brought in primarily to replace Kirstens throwing arm,delivers his darting mix of elbow-powered deliveries after an angular three- or four-step run-up.

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Thrower-down and batsman were constantly in conversation,adjusting lines and angles to suit Tendulkars objectives. From the outside,it seemed that Tendulkar wanted to shoulder arms to a significant percentage of deliveries.

Once out of his net,Tendulkar didnt take off his pads. Instead,he took the ball from Raghavindraa and gave him a little demonstration on wrist position. At Bridgetown in 2002,when West Indies came out to bat in their fourth innings needing only five runs to win,Tendulkar had taken the new ball for India and swung the ball both ways in the one over he bowled. Nine years on,Raghavindraa watched spellbound as the ball swerved this way and that,and nodded speechlessly when Tendulkar asked him,” Dekha,kaise swing hua? “