India ease into World Cup campaign with light session

India kickstarted their World Cup preparations with a light training session at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bangalore with all the 15 members of the squad present at the roll-call. This was the first time the players were assembling having enjoyed a 17-day break after the ODI series in South Africa. A day after receiving a minor jolt in the form of injury-forced exclusion of Praveen Kumar, one of the first-choice seamers, there was an air of optimism with the injured trio of Sachin Tendulkar (hamstring), Virender Sehwag (resting shoulder) and Gautam Gambhir (elbow) returning to the fold.

All those three were happily jostling with their team-mates and the South African coaching trio of Gary Kirsten, Eric Simons and Paddy Upton in an extended game of football. Interestingly, this could be Kirsten's farewell assignment. The man himself was his usual self: walking first into the training ground, re-arranging the nets put in place by the NCA staff, before moving on to his favorite job of giving throwdowns.

But since it was an optional nets practice (the official training begins tomorrow) only a few batsmen, including Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and Yuvraj Singh, padded up to face Kirsten. Though Kirsten had something to point out to Yuvraj, it seemed nothing serious as the throwdowns lasted barely ten minutes for each batsman. The bowlers, too, led by Zaheer Khan, Sreesanth, Ashish Nehra and the spinners bowled for about half hour as India eased into their World Cup campaign.