Taking throwdowns — twice within a gap of 15 minutes — Rahul only looked to play attacking shots, often forcing the bowlers to take evasive actions to avoid any scares.
For Shreyas Iyer, the session was more focused on his ability to control short balls.
After a regular hit in the nets, he sat down for a 15-minute break and played with the dog who had casually entered the training area
He then got back to work on his pull and hook shots with Dravid using a racquet and a few tennis balls to simulate steep bounce. He then padded up to face throwdown specialists Raghu (right-arm), Dayanand Garani (right-arm), and Nuwan Seneviratne (left-arm) for a quick hit before finally packing up.
R Ashwin was the first to enter the nets, and batted alongside Jasprit Bumrah for nearly 20 minutes, exchanging the position every five minutes.
While the fast bowler focused more on timing the ball, facing the net bowlers, Ashwin looked to hit the ball hard right from the beginning.
The bowlers, on the other hand, were trying to preserve their energy and only had a short burst of full-intensity bowling
It seemed like the fast bowlers were trying to bowl the defensive hard lengths while operating with the semi-new Kookaburra ball.
The bowlers tried to challenge the batters with match simulation field settings. While Iyer was challenged with mid-on and mid-off up, Pandya, when he came into bat, was challenged with both long-on and long-off at the boundary.
Indian players were wearing a new orange-coloured training kit during the session which ended with Pandya having a hit along with Shardul Thakur and Kuldeep Yadav in adjacent nets.
In Australia’s nearly three-hour evening session that began with 40 minutes of warm-up, football, and fielding drills, Smith batted close to an hour.
Initially, he began at a slow tempo, checking his shots, but kept getting more belligerent as time went by. Throughout his session, he faced left-arm spin from a 19-year-old Tarun Kumar, while the rest — from throwdown specialists to Josh Hazlewood — came and went.
Soon after the Aussies arrived, Glenn Maxwell, after a little warm-up, went straight into the nets and took on a bunch of local net bowlers for thirty minutes. He took a break in between, talked to the local bowlers, and got busy with a 20-minute power-hitting session. He bowled a bit as well before heading to the dugout.
Meanwhile, all-rounder Marcus Stoinis began and ended his training alone. For the first 20 minutes, he bowled alone, trying to get his line and length right – good length around the off stump. He then moved to the adjacent net to bowl to Marnus Labuschagne before padding up.
It was not all work and no play for the Aussies with a little football sprinkled into the training mix on Thursday.
Fans waited patiently to catch a glimpse of their favourite stars.
Story: Sahil Mathur Visuals: B Jothi Ramalingam Production: Lavanya Lakshminaeyanan