ICC World Twenty20: India practice hard and long

KOLKATA: India may have taken it easy at the nets on Thursday with practice being optional and a chunk of the team preferring to stay back in the hotel, except Raina, Rahane and Negi who spent some time at the venue. But on match eve, it was a full and prolonged drill for Team India which turned up in full strength to play, exercise and practice for close to three hours.
Ashwin, who turned an arm for the batsmen, followed by Ashish Nehra, Mohammed Shami and Jaspreet Bumrah, explained earlier in the day why the Indians took the day off from training even as the Pakistanis sweated it out at nets on Thursday. "They're probably a little more hardworking than us," he quipped. On a more serious note, he said: "It was more about relaxing and nothing to do with who we are playing. We have been on the road for the last three months. The best thing we can do is to think of ourselves rather than sitting together and practising. Generally, after a game like that you tend to go to practice and try harder and eventually go into the match day a little more tired. That's the idea behind it," he said.
Golden Handshake
Whatever happens in the middle today, on match eve, there were plenty of handshakes and camaraderie at Eden Gardens when the two teams turned up for practice. That Shahid Afridi is in a happy space after winning his first match has been talked about not just by their coach Waqar Younis but also Afridi himself in many ways, some being quips like "we will be hosting India at Kolkata". On Friday, in another friendly, Afridi walked up to Virat Kohli when he was practising at nets and shook hands in a kodak moment trail started by Raina and Shoaib Malik on Thursday.

Source: The Pioneer, 19 March, 2016

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