On the eve of the third ODI against Australia here on Thursday, India had an optional practice session, which was attended by most of the players except Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.
Head coach Ravi Shastri and bowling coach Bharat Arun were the first to take the field, followed by Yuzvendra Chahal and Ambati Rayudu. Kedar Jadhav started the proceedings in one of the nets, by taking throwdowns.
But soon enough, K.L. Rahul was ready to face Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who is making a comeback for the last three ODIs, and other local nets bowlers with Shastri keeping a close eye on the right-handed batsman.
READ: Series win in sight for Kohli & Co.
After having a successful T20I series against Australia with scores of 50 and 47, Rahul didn't feature in the first two one-dayers with Shikhar Dhawan returning to the side and Rayudu playing in the middle-order. If India seals the series here and probably may field an unchanged side, then Rahul may have to wait for his chance in the remaining two games.
At the start, he was hurried on by the net bowlers but once he got his eye in — the shots started to flow. Dhawan, on the other hand having returned with scores of 0 and 21 had a long throwdown session with batting coach Sanjay Bangar. The Delhi batsman was timing the ball well off the back-foot or be it playing on the up. At the end of it, both were seen having a long discussion with Dhawan in particular not happy with his forward defence.
Meanwhile, amid all this, local boy Mahendra Singh Dhoni had started batting. But surprisingly there were hardly any people in the stands to see him bat and many believe this could well be his last match at his home ground.
India is 2-0 up and got three more ODIs in the series before heading into the World Cup.
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