India batters test themselves against nine slow bowlers

NAGPUR: Most of the India batters committed themselves to double shift in the nets against slow bowlers ahead of the Australia series opener.

On Tuesday, the India team had as many as nine specialist spinners – four in the main squad and five from domestic and India A combined – helping the batters out. While Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav bowled as usual, off-spinners Pulkit Narang and Jayant Yadav along with leg-spinner Rahul Chahar and left-arm spinners R Sai Kishore and Saurabh Kumar did the bulk of the job.

“The thing that, obviously, we have worked on is playing spin. We know how the pitches are going to play here in India and what to expect. Keeping that in mind, we have practised playing spin,” vice-captain KL Rahul said.

While Shubman Gill and Virat Kohli played the sweep shots, Cheteshwar Pujara was more intent on negating the off-breaks with a big forward stride. Head coach Rahul Dravid spent considerable amount of time with Gill and was seen explaining the various methods to keep the sweep down.