Debasis Sen, Bengaluru: In a bid to prepare himself well ahead of the twin tours of Ireland and England, former India captain MS Dhoni was seen practicing alone at the nets of National Cricket Academy (NCA) on Monday.
Dhoni was seen facing close to hundreds of deliveries from Shardul Thakur and taking throw-downs from Raghavendra. The training session lasted close to two hours away from the madding crowd and media.
Dhoni, who took the YoYo test on June 15 with other limited overs specialist had stayed back and perhaps waited for the hullabaloo around the team to die down before taking the field.
On what would have been the fifth day of the Afghanistan Test match (had it not finished in two days), Dhoni was seen walking at the nets with his pads on.
It was two hours at a stretch and after a short break, he again resumed batting and this time Siddarth Kaul also joined the session.
There wasn’t too many souls around to watch and experience a Dhoni net session. Raghu started with usual length deliveries as he warmed up with usual knocking. Slowly the pace increased as the veteran was peppered with short balls which reared from back of the length. He gingerly defended a few, confidently brought a few down and even stayed out of the line in case of a few.
However the moment there was some width, Dhoni would slash it over point. He would call up Shardul and ask him about his imaginary field placings. Shardul would be seen pointing at imaginary field positions like midwicket, extra cover and deep fine leg. Dhoni would play shots accordingly.
After every few deliveries, he had words of advice for Shardul, who listened intently like a good student. The reflexes are certainly not the same as it used to be. There were a lot of play and miss deliveries but when he middled it, it did make a beautiful sound. Once the session was over, he hurriedly disappeared inside the NCA.