Steve Smith and David Warner, the banned Australian duo, showed up in the Australian net sessions to help out the bowlers for the ongoing series against India. While Warner sweated out on Saturday, former skipper Smith marked his presence a day after at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Both Smith and Warner have been out from the international scene since the infamous sandpaper-gate, took place during the Cape Town Test in March. And once they hit the nets, they trembled a bit but had a decent outing.
The pace-trio looked fierce and intense, especially Josh Hazlewood, who put Smith on his backside as the batter lost his footing attempting to hook a lethal bouncer.
Here’s the video:
As per several media reports, there were no speed guns during the practice session but the bowlers seemed to be bowling at top-speed which even troubled the best batsmen of the country.
Later in the day, Kohli and his men too had a training session ahead of their four-day practice match against Cricket Australia XI starting from Wednesday in Sydney.
The much-awaited Test series
After drawing the 3-match T20I series 1-1, India will be gearing up for a 4-match Test series against Australia in their backyard. The first match begins from December 6 at the Adelaide Oval.
1st Test – December 6-10, Adelaide Oval
2nd Test – December 14-18, Perth Stadium
3rd Test – December 26-30, MCG
4th Test – January 3-7, SCG
Here’re the squads:
India: Virat Kohli (c), Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, Prithvi Shaw, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Hanuma Vihari, Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant (wk), Parthiv Patel (wk), Ravi Ashwin, Ravi Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar
Australia: Tim Paine (c, wk), Josh Hazlewood (vc), Mitch Marsh (vc), Pat Cummins, Aaron Finch, Peter Handscomb, Marcus Harris, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Shaun Marsh, Peter Siddle, Mitchell Starc, Chris Tremain