From spin drills to Charani’s extra effort: Inside India’s Lord’s practice session

It was an intense practice session for the Indian women’s team at Lord’s (Nursery ground) ahead of their historic Test match against England Women, starting on July 10.

The session began with the usual warm-up drills as all the players went through their regular routine. There were three nets, with all the batters taking turns. To start, Jemimah Rodrigues, Smriti Mandhana, Harleen Deol, Shafali Verma and Yastika Bhatia were seen batting. Renuka Singh Thakur, Deepti Sharma, and Sayali Satghare began the proceedings with the ball. Interestingly, there was a different set of bowlers at each net. Later, in the first net, India’s throwdown specialists were in action, while the middle net had the net bowlers. In the third net, bowling coach Aavishkar Salvi kept a close watch on Nandini Sharma, Kranti Gaud and N Sree Charani.

The three bowlers took turns bowling at the stumps, with Salvi engaging in discussions after almost every ball, possibly offering suggestions or feedback. They later bowled to skipper Harmanpreet Kaur and Richa Ghosh. Deepti and Sneh Rana also had a long batting session, facing Shafali Verma and the net bowlers, who offered plenty of variety with a left-arm seamer, right-arm seamer and a left-arm orthodox spinner operating.

In another net, Sayali was later seen batting against the throwdown specialists, a left-arm orthodox spinner, an off-spinner and a left-arm wrist-spinner. England have left-arm orthodox spinners (Tilly Corteen-Coleman and Sophie Ecclestone) and off-spinners (Alice Capsey, Emma Lamb and Mady Villiers) in their squad. It seemed that practising against spin was one of the main training drills. Even after her batting stint, Sayali was seen having a chat with head coach Amol Muzumdar.

Throughout the session, Amol was seen keeping a close eye on every individual as he encouraged several players while also giving feedback. Pratika Rawal also had a batting stint, first with some help from Amol and then against the throwdown specialists. She was seen practising mostly front-foot drives, pointing out the line where she wanted the balls to pitch. Even the throwdown specialists were seen delivering underarm throws to hit that length consistently.

Just when it seemed the curtains were about to come down on the practice session, which was scheduled till 12:30 pm local time, Sree Charani was in no mood to leave the nets. She continued batting for another 15 minutes before the session finally ended. Along with the throwdown specialists, Charani seemed eager to put in extra work on her batting. She played a few lovely shots through the off side and in the ‘V’. Despite several support staff asking her to stop, she kept saying, “aur ek ball, aur do ball (one more ball, two more balls)”.

On a lighter note, it was quite funny, but that eagerness showed how Charani did not want to cut short her batting practice and was keen to keep pushing herself even after spending long hours bowling earlier in the session.

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