Debasis Sen, London: Virat Kohli and his boys were involved in a fun activity during their first practice session at the Oval ahead of the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2019. The Indian cricketers took part in bib-catching at the beginning of their training session. The idea is to increase team bonding and make the practice sessions more fun filled. The bonding within the team will be extremely important over the next 46 days if India has to do well in the tournament.
Leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal explained the fun activity in a video posted by BCCI on its twitter.”We went to bib catching. That is all about agility and stamina. You have to run around with each carrying a bib at the back. In a two-minute round you have to snatch each other’s bibs. The one with the most number of bibs wins. After the second round we ran so much that we fell on the ground,” said Chahal.
Some ⚽️+ BIB catching for #TeamIndia on Day 1 at the drills ? ?
Mr. @yuzi_chahal at it ?️#CWC19 pic.twitter.com/tupMzxNQUC— BCCI (@BCCI) May 23, 2019
After the bib-catching session the players were involved in intense fielding drills under fielding coach S Sridhar. Captain Virat Kohli padded up first to bat at the nets along with Shikhar Dhawan and Hardik Pandya. Rohit Sharma, MS Dhoni and KL Rahul followed next. Seamers Vijay Shankar and Md Shami bowled at one nets while Chahal and Jadeja rolled their arms at the other. Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar too bowled at the nets.
Kedar Jadhav was seen going through the grind under physio Patrick Farhat and physical trainer Shankar Basu. MS Dhoni and Shikhar Dhawan were seen practicing with tennis balls. The duo was given short ball practice by Sridhar.
The Men in Blue will play two warm-up games against New Zealand and Bangladesh on May 25 and 28 respectively, before their first World Cup game against South Africa on June 5 in Southampton.