An overwhelmingly large crowd queued up at the Adelaide Oval to watch the visitors play some foot-volleyball, engage in friendly banter, and also work on their shot-making
Alagappan Muthu03-Dec-20242:54
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Cricket with the pink ball might be worth it just for the colours. There is a picture from the very first day-night Test. The players in white, the turf in green, the Adelaide Oval in grey. And then there was the sky, just erupting with red.That game, between Australia and New Zealand in 2015, drew crowds that totaled up to 123,768 and a TV audience of 3.19 million in the closing stages. An Ashes day-night Test holds the record for the highest first-day attendance, this is since this ground was redeveloped in 2013 – 55, 317 people came through the gates seven years ago. There is a strong chance that number would be beaten when Australia host India for the second match of the Border-Gavaskar series.Both teams’ practice sessions on Tuesday was open to the public, and while there was a smattering of people who did enjoy seeing Usman Khawaja, Steven Smith and Marnus Labuschagne bat in the morning, India’s training in the evening attracted an audience that filled not just the area next to the nets but three tiers of walkways in the stands overlooking them. Which is the home team again at Adelaide?Related
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India do not play this format very often. They’ve competed in four day-night Tests so far and their last one was nearly three years ago. By contrast, Australia play one of these things every season and they’ve been beaten only once. So the work that Rohit Sharma and his men do over these three days, the cues they can pick up about the way the pink ball behaves, is crucial. It’s just that they had to do that against a whole lot more noise than they might have perhaps anticipated, which may not have been ideal for them, but the families that came by with their kids, some of them carrying bats and jerseys to have autographed, they’ll have gone home with a story to tell over and over and over again and stories like these often get better (and wilder) with each retelling. Amit Mishra (not that one), who is part of the fan engagement arm of Cricket Australia, helped arrange all of this.India had a rousing three to four hours getting acquainted with the challenges they will face over the coming week, under both watchful eyes, with the head coach Gautam Gambhir rejoining the team, and awestruck ones, as the fans made their presence felt with every big shot that came off. There was a moment when Rohit played his swivel pull, connecting so sweetly that it soared away in front of square, that moved the crowd into instinctive cheers, which maybe, just maybe brought a shadow of a smile to his face. A distraction they might have been, but the fans certainly added to the occasion.Rohit and Rishabh Pant were the first to have a hit on Tuesday. This happened about half an hour ahead of schedule; a quick little drill where India’s captain seemed to be working on his front-foot play against balls in the off-stump corridor. He had repeated chats with batting coach Abhishek Nayar who spurred Rohit on, asking him to trust his method, pushing him on with feedback like “that last over was class,” and it was. He was picking length well and his balance at the crease – going both forward and back – was there for all to see.Then the entire team assembled at the main ground and played foot-volleyball with a row of chairs acting as the net, and it led to adorable little fights that you see in every playground, about line calls. Being a sportsperson must be the closest thing to being Peter Pan. There are times you can just be a kid. A kid with benefits. Because now you can curse like KL Rahul did when he was nicked off by Akash Deep, whose speed and sideways movement off the pitch made him a proper menace.The Indian team had an eventful nets session in Adelaide•Getty ImagesThese nets were intense. It featured a lot of shot-making, which in a way was just high-class batters reacting to what was coming at them. In Perth, with so many unknowns to deal with, and a desperation not to go 1-0 down, there was a lot of drilling down on defence.The best of the session was Virat Kohli vs Jasprit Bumrah. It started with a few easy leaves and then there was a tight one, the batter covering his stumps and then watching the ball fly just outside off stump. There was a knowing exchange of looks. The crispest shot Kohli hit was a back-foot punch against Bumrah and you could see, both how switched on he needed to be and how satisfied he was with his connection, in the way he just scampered across towards the other end, almost as if he was so wired that he needed to get rid of some of the excess energy.Bumrah was getting a substantial amount of movement off the pitch with the pink ball. He had Pant playing the angle into him from around the wicket and beat his leading edge so soundly that he had to offer up a wry smile. Non-verbal for “sorry bro. Didn’t mean to do you like that.” Bumrah had Jaiswal caught behind the first time they came head-to-head and he even hurried Rohit, the one batter in this team that never looks hurried against fast bowling. With every passing day, the feeling grows that the outcome of this series rests on his shoulders.India still have a question about the make-up of their top-order and the only clue, if any, came from who paired with whom in the net sessions. Jaiswal was with Rahul. No. 1 and 2. Kohli was with Shubman Gill. No. 4 and 3. And Rohit was with Pant. No. 5 and 6. That eventually changed – Kohli and Rahul faced spin together, Jaiswal and Washington Sundar faced throwdowns together – and sometimes they played without anybody waiting at the other end. It is likely that until the team sheets are presented at the toss on Friday, India will not be looking to offer any clarity on the subject. It’s useful to keep people – particularly the Australians – guessing.