Kohli extends net session as Indian team hold closed door training

Back to the grind after a couple of days' leave, Virat Kohli's extended net session was the focal point of Team India's first training session in the city ahead of its World Cup opener against Australia on Sunday.

Closed door sessions are prevalent among football teams, where managers don't want anyone to get a whiff of tactical preparedness of a team.

But it is not very common among cricket teams where tactical stuff is way more set but on Wednesday, Indian team decided to bar media from watching the session.

The biggest talking point will be bowling composition and whether India will field an extra seamer in Mohammed Shami or use local hero Ravichandran Ashwin depending on the surface used for the game.

With Hardik Pandya bowling 6-7 overs per game and at times even full quota, the temptation will be to field Ashwin, who can play with Australian minds.

Kohli's extra hour at nets

Kohli faced customary throw-ins for considerable period before facing some of the local net bowlers.

While it was scheduled to be a two-hour training session, Kohli put in an extra 45 minutes as the team has already missed two warm-up games, which helps in simulation.

India missing out on its CWC warm-ups is not entirely a loss, given it had already played a three-match ODI series against Australia a couple of weeks back.

Although Kohli did not play the opening two games of the series, he did manage to play a composed knock of a 61-ball 56 in the final ODI in Rajkot.

Besides Kohli, the other Indians to also sweat it out at the nets in Chennai were all-rounders Hardik Pandya and Ravindra Jadeja, along with left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav.

While Jadeja began with the ball, he also batted it out, whereas Kuldeep and Pandya engaged in bowling before the latter also had a quick batting session.

• World Cup 2023

The rest of the team, along with skipper-cum-opener Rohit Sharma, missed the training as he was in Ahmedabad for the pre-competition press conference.

India will be having more training sessions in the coming days before taking on Australia on Sunday.