Handscomb enjoying trial by spin

With his slim silhouette in long sleeves and sunhat, there is something of Michael Clarke about Peter Handscomb when he's on the field. With bat in hand the resemblance is even greater, given his eagerness to dance down the track to the spinners. When seen close-up, like at a press conference after scoring 92 against India A, you notice a facial resemblance with that other twinkle-toed Australian middle-order batsman Steven Smith, albeit with darker hair.

Asked how he developed his fleet-footed technique against spin, Handscomb went back to his childhood, when he was "probably 12, something like that".

"That was just something my dad taught me when I was a lot younger," he said. "We just used to go down to the nets and get on the bowling machine, and he used to just say, run at everything.

"He'd throw the ball, didn't matter how fast, I'd use my feet and get down the wicket and basically just try and cope with it. And then over the years, obviously adjusted my game, kept practicing it, kept getting throws, and as you work through the grades, work through the levels, it's just a confidence thing now to try and use my feet almost every ball."

On a slow pitch in Chennai with a fair degree of turn, Handscomb handled Amit Mishra and Pragyan Ojha confidently. Not just by skipping down the track, but also going deep in his crease to pull and late cut. In sight of a fifth first-class century, he came out of his crease one more time and was stumped off Mishra.

"It was actually really good fun," Handscomb said. "Obviously, two world-class spinners in their own right, and coming out and getting to play against them was just great fun. And I could try and play the way I play, and did alright. Came down, went back, and in the end, Amit Mishra is a very good bowler and he managed to spin one past me."

Unlike some successful players of spin, Handscomb doesn't play the sweep too often. "It's definitely a conscious decision," he said. "I've never really played it. I've tried to learn how to play it and I've struggled and I've gotten out a couple of times playing it. So I've pretty much just backed myself to just use my feet, go forward and back, and try and put off the spinners rather than play the sweep shot. Just not one of my shots."

Before coming to India, Handscomb was in England, playing Twenty20 cricket for Gloucestershire in the Natwest T20 Blast. Given the shift in conditions, Handscomb didn't get too much time to prepare, but he had some knowledge of Indian conditions already.

"About two years ago, I managed to come over to Chennai on a two-week academy trip, so I had played on a few Chennai wickets," he said. "So I had a rough idea of what to expect, but in terms of preparation I've been playing in England, the last two and a half months, so the conditions were slightly different.

"I was playing a lot more of the swinging ball as opposed to spin, so didn't get a lot of preparation. But I was able to get here a couple of days early and work on getting my feet going again while playing spin, just my natural game."