Shubman Gill faces balls from the side-arm in the nets; Suryakumar Yadav puts in double shift fending off spinners

Abhishek Sharma (left) and Shubman Gill (right) sweating it out in the nets in Dharamshala. (PTI Photo)

As South Africa’s riveting all-format tour to these parts goes into its final week, things remain evenly poised. Having drubbed India in the Tests and tested them in the ODIs, they arrive in the Himalayas with the five-match T20 series squared at 1-1 following their victory at Mullanpur.

That at the HPCA Stadium here on Saturday, the Indians were engaged in a two-hour-long intense batting session, while the South Africans did not show up at all, is a testament to which team feels under the pump at the moment. And nobody is more desperate for form than the hosts’ leaders and star batters.

Shubman Gill has not made a 50+ score since July 2024 in India colours, Suryakumar’s last-12 month average is lurking around 14. Both would be very keen to make the best of the batting-friendly conditions that are expected to come under the lights in the cold, high-altitude atmosphere here on Sunday night.

And they trained with those expectations. Gill’s approach to net sessions is format-agnostic; he is very keen to keep batting until he is confident he has eked out all the persistent issues. He relentlessly took on right-arm and left-arm seamers, as well as balls from the side-arm. Marco Jansen has gotten under India’s skin with both ball and bat on this tour, and the way the ball moving into him from the left-armers tested both edge and pads did not augur well. Long chats were had with teammates and coaches.

Suryakumar may well think he will still be needed to take on the spinners, especially with all the time he spent in the nets trying those unique shots and turns and sweeps behind square. (PTI Photo)

Suryakumar’s session may have given some clues about where he thinks his place is in the batting order, given that he spent a bulk of his time facing spinners. In Mullanpur, Axar Patel was sent up at No. 3, seemingly to curb the flow of wickets, but the skipper still needed to turn up in the powerplay and departed within it too. The Axar gambit did not quite work since runs were on a premium in a 200+ run chase and his ability to accelerate against spinners was not used at all, he spent most of his run-a-ball 21 fending off pacers.

But Suryakumar may well think he will still be needed to take on the spinners, especially with all the time he spent in the nets trying those unique shots and turns and sweeps behind square. He later came to the main stadium ground, joined by Gill, to tonk them down the ground.

India may not be too perturbed by the defeat in Mullanpur in a volatile, at times random, format. After all, it was just their third loss this year. The greater worry is the lack of runs from their established stars, who would do well to put those concerns to bed on Sunday.