The Indian cricket team, practicing for the Twenty20 match against Leicestershire, took precautions and barred the media from its training session. Team India’s manager Shivlal Yadav said it was due to the “bomb scare” which gripped the city of Canterbury in the match against Kent two days ago.
But what it had got to do with the practice session at Leicester took some convincing. The liaison officer of the team though said, “the coach (Duncan Fletcher) has asked me and the security personnels to keep media off the practice session” — an assertion which was confirmed by more than one security personnel guarding the gates of the nets.
The media interest now centres around how the defending world champions fare in the one-day matches after a 0-4 whitewash in the Test series.
There is considerable concern on how Gautam Gambhir, suffering from blurred vision, is shaping up for the one-dayers and whether newcomers — Ajinkya Rahane and Varun Aaron could be in with a chance to find a place in the playing XI.
Yadav informed that Gambhir had nets restricted to throwdowns from bowling coach Eric Simmons.
It was also revealed by one of the players, returning to pavilion, that both Rahane and Aaron had stints at the nets.
All this media could gather only by word of mouth as there was no visual or recording opportunity available for them.
