After two months of intense competitive cricket under night lights, the Virat Kohli-less Indian cricket team began their preparations for the T20 World Cup with a morning practice session here, keeping in mind a 10:30 am start time for all their preliminary matches . Kohli took a break for personal work following RCB’s exit from the IPL and in all likelihood, he will join the team on Friday. But it is unclear whether he will be able to take part in the only friendly against Bangladesh on Saturday after a long flight.
Having played 90 percent of the matches under lights in the scorching Indian summer, the idea would be to adjust to pleasant mornings where temperatures would hover between 25 and 27 degrees Celsius with much less humidity.
A white kookaburra on mornings with little wind can be a challenge, and to be prepared for it, jet-lagged bodies need to get used to the morning conditions. And that’s why the support staff, before starting skills training (network sessions) on the training pitches of a field on the outskirts of the city, decided to help the players adapt to the conditions.
With 14 players checking in, there was light jogging, routine runs and a bit of volleyball to get into a rhythm.
“They have been away from us for two and a half months and the objective is to find out where they are and what needs to be done before the World Cup. The (first) goal is to spend 45 minutes in the heat to move forward,” Strength and Conditioning Coach Soham Desai told bcci.tv.
“We arrived the day before yesterday and have already eased the routine here, the players are getting used to the time difference. Today we will do our first floor training,” he added.
As far as the players are concerned, there is an element of curiosity about playing cricket in New York.
Indian teams, over the years, have played mainly in Florida at the Fort Lauderhill ground during their tours of the West Indies.
“The first time we will play cricket in New York it will be fun,” said all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja.
“We haven’t played cricket yet, we came here for a team activity today. We hope it will be good. The weather is really nice, so we are looking forward to it.”
Captain Rohit Sharma’s deputy Hardik Pandya seemed excited about the “bright sun” and “good vibes”, while Suryakumar Yadav wanted to know more about the diaspora’s interests in cricket.
“I hear cricket is growing here in the US. We are very excited and the first day here was incredible, very excited about the next few days”, said Surya.
2007 T20 World Cup champions India will begin their campaign here on June 5 against Ireland, followed by the big game against arch-rivals Pakistan on June 9.
They face hosts USA on June 12 before the cricket caravan moves to Lauderhill, Florida for the game against Canada on June 15.
India were to be classified as A1 regardless of where they finished in the group, and would then head to the Caribbean islands for the Super 8 stage of the tournament, where they would face Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka.
None of the Indian senior team players took part in the IPL finals held on May 26 in Chennai.
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This story originally appeared on ndtv.com read the full story
