Rahul trains with single stumps, Rahane visits elephant orphanage

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Debasis Sen, Pallekele:
Fresh from their test series whitewash against Sri Lanka, Team India coach Ravi Shastri got down to practice with his one day players on Wednesday for the 5 match ODI series coming up against the hosts. ODI vice captain Rohit Sharma along with KL Rahul and Axar Patel was at the nets of Pallekele International Stadium, sweating it out under the watchful eyes of Shastri.

Focus will be on Rohit Sharma as he will be handling the added responsibility of vice captaincy of the Indian team. Rohit, who captained Mumbai Indians to two IPL championships, consider it as a huge honour to be promoted as vice captain.

“It is a huge honour to be appointed as the vice captain. Leading in the IPL is completely different from playing in International cricket. The excitement and the energy level is the same. So yes, nothing changes too much. I am the vice-captain here, there I was the captain, so I was more in front. Here I have to play a little behind-the-scene role. But yes, I will be very excited to step on to the field as the vice-captain of the Indian team,” said Rohit.

Apart from Rohit, the focus will also be on KL Rahul, who will be tried at No. 4 position in the ODI series as indicated by captain Virat Kohli. The opener from Karnataka has been in tremendous form in the two test matches, scoring half centuries in both. Fielding coach Sridhar was seen giving Rahul some short ball practice at the nets. The Karnataka batsman was connecting the pull shots with ease. He was also seen practicing with a single stump so as to improve his hand eye co-ordination.

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With the ODI players like MS Dhoni, Jasprit Bumrah, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Yuzuvendra Chahal likely to join the team here tomorrow, few members of the test team who are here went to the Pinnawala Elephant Reserve. Test vice captain Ajinkya Rahane was accompanied by his wife Radhika to the reserve along with a few other members.

The Indian team will be leaving for Dambulla from Kandy tomorrow for the ODI series opener on Sunday at the Rangiri International Cricket Stadium. Last time the two sides faced each other was in the Champions Trophy where the islanders successfully chased India’s huge total of 320 runs. On being reminded of that defeat, Rohit Sharma said, “They beat us quite comfortably in the Champions Trophy. We posted a very good score. 320 was never going to be easy especially in those conditions but they came out and batted fearlessly and took the game away from us. So you know in one day cricket they are a very good team. We just got to do what we have been doing for the past few years. We got to stick to our strength and things like that. We have been playing good cricket.  As far as I am concerned we need to look at what we need to do as a team and bring out the best on the field. That’s what we did in the recent Test series. We just focussed on what we need to do as a group and that has always been the talk. We need to focus on our ability and strengths.”