India’s preparation for the long Test season ahead began on Friday with some new faces saying hello and some old ones saying, miss me? Virat Kohli is back on the red-ball grind for the first time in nearly nine months. Rishabh Pant looks ready to pick up where his Test career left off two years ago. And Gautam Gambhir was there overseeing it all as the team gears up to face Bangladesh (two Tests in September), New Zealand (three Tests in October) and Australia (five Tests in November-January).
India’s Test squad arrived in Chennai on Thursday and took to training in batches. The captain Rohit Sharma addressed them in a huddle and was one of the first to get out there and take a hit. He was joined by Kohli as the two of them faced a series of net bowlers on specially prepared pitches at either end of the square in the MA Chidambaram Stadium.
One had a black-soil base, with so many footmarks around the full and good length area that it almost looked scorched. The other had a red-soil base and it bore marks of selective watering; the short and good length area was pristine but everything fuller than that was roughed up. The centre wicket, though, was cordoned off and it seemed to contain a fair bit of grass. In previous years, India have tried to simulate fast-bowler friendly conditions in home Test matches to prepare for significant away tours.
Rohit and Kohli worked alongside their top-order team-mates Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill, who will be coming into the new season with plenty of confidence after coming-of-age performances against England earlier this year. All four of them alternated between the two nets and were fed a diet rich in left-arm spin. Tamil Nadu’s Ajith Ram and M Siddharth kept wheeling away in an attempt to mirror threat that Shakib Al Hasan will pose in the coming weeks. Varun Chakravarthy was there too, and so was Himanshu Singh, a 21-year-old offspinner from Mumbai who seems to have borrowed R Ashwin’s bowling action.
Soon it was time for India’s bowlers to have their fun and Jasprit Bumrah, who last played for India in the T20 World Cup final in June, did not hold back. Even if it is his second skill, he was majestic charging out of the crease to loft balls straight down the ground. In the afternoon, he indulged in some light fitness work and then chatted up the bowling coach Morne Morkel.
The rookie fast bowlers had to clear a sterner workload. Yash Dayal, who is being groomed with an eye towards the Border-Gavaskar Trophy later in the year, had a productive session under the eyes of both Morkel and Gambhir. Aside from his ability to provide a left-arm angle, his effort ball has a habit of hitting fairly high on the bat.
Pant provided one of the more thrilling moments of Friday’s session when he took Dayal on, after being beaten, with a remarkably casual pick-up shot off his hips. When he was in a life-threatening car crash in December 2022, the wicketkeeper was one of India’s leading batters in Test cricket. Although he has already made his return to the limited-overs format, and was part of the side that won the T20 World Cup, it will be a big moment, next Thursday, when he is back out there playing red-ball cricket.
The first Test against Bangladesh in Chennai on September 19 is one of five home games that India have in their run into the World Test Championship final in June 2025. They are No. 1 on the points table currently and will be looking for somewhere in the region of five more wins from the 10 remaining games they have on their calendar to make a third successive final appearance.