Hits and misses with India A

It's the penultimate day of the India A team's preparatory camp at the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore, and after 17 days of the grind, there's an end-of-term feel to the place as the players troop in for fielding practice in the afternoon. Some, like Rohan Gavaskar, are already in the indoor nets, anxious to get a knock in before they start chasing balls around.

John Wright arrives two minutes before the session starts, and the group sets off for the vast empty spaces of the main stadium, where the ground staff are working on a suspiciously green-looking wicket. Once the obligatory stretches and push-ups are out of the way, it's down to serious business. Gone are the days when an Indian team's fielding session was manna from heaven to the insomniac, and from the looks of things, gone too are the days when fielders threw themselves about like alcoholics stumbling onto the sets of Swan Lake. The players have been divided into two groups, one wearing navy vests and the other light blue. With starting berths in the A team still up for grabs, you can feel the sense of competition in the air.

Sandeep Patil, the team's coach, starts things off with a modified game of tip-and-run. He rolls the ball in the direction of point, and the chasing fielder has to pick up and throw to the wicketkeeper's end. The keeper collects - assuming the stumps haven't been broken by a direct hit - and attempts to run-out the man running to the other end. It's an exercise that combines the need for sharp infielding with brisk running between wickets, and the occasional direct hit is greeted with whoops of joy.

Once that's over, Wright jogs over to his bag and collects a baseball glove. Patil has one too, and the next half hour is dedicated to throwing at a row of single stumps. Four of them are set up in a line, with four players staggered around each one. When Wright or Patil throws the ball in a fielder's direction, they gather and take aim at the nearest stump. If they miss, the man backing up collects and has a shy at the next stump along the line. The players swap places as this goes on, which means each man gets an opportunity to be Dead Shot Keen. The players practise underarm throws first before switching over to the real thing. There are quite a few direct hits, and each one is generously applauded by the coaches.

You've seen the same sort of thing with the seniors, but there's definitely a greater urgency and enthusiasm about this lot. The times, they have a-changed in Indian cricket, and with Wright and Patil in charge, it's really going to be survival of the fittest.

As the session wound down, Erapalli Prasanna crossed the field on his way to the NCA. What would his generation have made of all this? Mind you, the Nawab of Pataudi, Eknath Solkar, Srinivas Venkataraghavan and Sunil Gavaskar could have shown these lads a trick or two.