Gautam Gambhir interacts with Team India players in the optional practice session at the Eden Gardens. (ANI Photo)Much after the groundsmen had unfastened the nets, rolled and tied them up with big white ribbons, and ferried on their shoulders to their dungeon, the sweepers had scrubbed the surface off the powdery debris, Sai Sudharsan and Washington Sundar lingered for a session of close-in catch in a distant corner of the ground. Washington crouched low, from first slip, to swoop grass-trimmers with his giant palms; Sai hunkered down, at silly point and then short-leg, to pouch edges ricocheting from an inclined object that resembled wheel chokes.
Their teammates — Dhruv Jurel, Akash Deep, Ravindra Jadeja, and Devdutt Padikkal had also turned up for the optional practice session on the scheduled fifth day of the Test — had long retreated to the dressing room after nearly three hours of assorted drills. But Washington and Sai, Tamil Nadu pals, wanted to train their reflexes to close-in rigours before travelling to Guwahati on Wednesday. Eventually, the support staff had to coax them out of their reverie. A bevy of medics swarmed Washington for selfies, Sai walked past them without the nauseous attention that stalks India’s cricketers.
During the session, suffocatingly intense, he batted in the constant gaze of the coaches, often standing in a line to whisper advice. With Shubman Gill’s participation in the Guwahati Test uncertain, Sai, the designated No. 3 in Gautam Gambhir’s designs, could potentially return. In his last Test, he stroked a mellifluous 87 against the West Indies, but lost his spot in Eden in India’s all-rounder shapeshifting. His possible return and Gill’s absence would give a left-majority look to India’s batting line-up. The prospect could light up the eyes of South Africa off-spinner Simon Harmer, however, that is only an outlying concern.
But Sai barely faced spin bowling. His spin game is largely impenetrable, raised on Chepauk turners. His tendency to hang on the back foot, even to fuller balls, is counteracted by his smooth hands and fast reflexes. “The only thing we talk about is some of the very full balls also, he plays on the back foot. So we’re trying to cut [down] on that. He very much knows that, and he tries. And obviously the line [matters]; if the line is outside off stump, the same length he could easily go [onto the] front foot and play, then impact [on the pad] would be outside off stump,” batting coach Sitanshu Kotak said during the West Indies series. None of the worries surfaced on Tuesday.
More concerning, though, is him losing shape when playing off his hips to the balls slanting into his body from the seamers. Consequently, he falls over and ends up playing the stroke away from the body, just the hands flapping at the ball. He becomes an easy snare for leg-side traps. England’s seamers dutifully exploited his vulnerability. So, to get reacquainted with the line that eats up his peace of mind, that blind-spots him into innocuous positions, Akash Deep teased him with hard-length balls into his body. He comfortably defended on the back foot — only when he searches for run-making avenues does he get into trouble. Not a sleep-killing weakness, but one could destroy his siesta. He dealt those comfortably, but Akash Deep squared him up a few times with the fifth-stump line. A couple dribbled off his outside edge. Akash, on his home deck, bowled with rhythm and sharpness, snapping through his action without any strain.
Both Gambhir and Kotak prowled around Sai’s nets. Gambhir shuttled from one net to the other with the fastidious demeanour of a hostel warden, viewing batsmen from every conceivable angle, straining his neck, stretching his sinews, watching as many balls as possible. He would sidle him up for a chat; so would his trusted lieutenants Kotak, Morne Morkel, and Ryan Ten Doeschate. Sai studiously nodded his head and headed back to the nets, knotting the milk white bandana beneath his helmet.
Morkel wore a more relaxed demeanour, at times playfully threatening to uncoil the lumbering action of his. He, after all, was the closest clone to Marco Jansen and capable of replicating his vertical threats, albeit with the opposite hand. The nets indeed had a left-arm seamer, but nearly a foot shorter than Jansen and sans his venom. Sai had little qualm dealing with him.
Later, Morkel bowled off-breaks at Akash Deep and rattled his stumps twice. Each time, he celebrated by spreading his arms like the Vitruvian Man. He entertained Jurel’s requests too, though his defences were harder to breach. He was the tallest spinner in view, and India’s batsmen, with a growing susceptibility against tall spinners, gave Morkel’s shoulder a thorough working over.
The other in-demand spinner on the floor was Washington. The practice surface was less bestial than the one used for the Test, now burnt and frozen until the next round of engagements. But Ravindra Jadeja soaked a relentless burst from Washington, plus a squadron of net spinners who barely woke up any demons from the surface. He unfurled his sweeps and cuts and, out of sheer ennui, dialled a reverse sweep he top-edged. Washington, though, offered a tighter interrogation of his spin game. He lured him to drive and beat him a few times. He imposed an hour-long spell on Washington before the off-spinning all-rounder padded up for a few brazen hits himself.
Unlike his defensive orientations in both innings, Washington was on turbocharge mode, dancing down the sleepy surface to cuff them over cover or thump them over mid-wickets. The hits that cracked off his bat like gunshots stung the nets, shaking the blue poles on which they were latched. He was not the Eden monk, but the Chepauk marauder. By then, Jurel, after his defensive musings and an over off-spin, proceeded to the newly erected nets beside the centre square and instructed the net bowlers to bowl good length outside the off-stump, from where he could practise his reverse sweeps. As the session wore on, the tenseness at the start ebbed, as though they had reconciled with the defeat and were heading to Guwahati with unshattered belief.
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