Preserve of the reserve

It's always interesting to know how a reserve spends his time when a cricket match is going on. On every day of the game, during the lunch and tea breaks, some, or all, of the reserve Indian batsmen walk up to the practice nets and have a brief knock.

Ian Frazer, the biomechanics expert, usually bowls/throws balls down at them and watches them thump it back with supreme confidence, with the ball usually crashing into the advertising hoardings with a resounding clang.

Parthiv and Jaffer are there almost everyday, while Gambhir and Ganguly join them on occasions. It provides an entertaining diversion for the crowd at midwicket, in the Golf Course End, who cheer/jeer/hoot/sledge and often offer advise on batting technique.

One of them wondered why the batsmen padded up to face such pappu bowling; the other felt that Frazer was feeding the batsman too many half-volleys; one loudly asked what use such a session would be; and a couple of them kept asking Jaffer what his name was, feeling irritated when they got absolutely no response.

The clincher came when the umpires walked on to the field as one of them yelled out, "Kal milenge, naam leke aana" (We’ll meet tomorrow, get your name along).