It may sound strange, but the manually-operated giant scoreboard at the Ferozshah Kotla stadium on Monday did not have the names of Virender Sehwag and Harbhajan Singh in the line-up displayed.
Was it because Sehwag and Harbhajan are under fire for below par performances in recent matches? Or those in-charge may have not been given all the Indian players' nameplates?
Just wondering whether the scoreboard operators were attempting to send across a message to the team management.
The scorekeeper's India XI read: R Dravid, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif, Irfan Pathan, M S Dhoni, S Sreesanth, R P Singh, Gautam Gambhir, Ajit Agarkar, Ramesh Power, Munaf Patel and Suresh Raina.
Dravid storms out of briefing
Media persons gathered at the Ferozshah Kotla stadium's press conference room on Monday witnessed an unusually agitated Rahul Dravid storm off the briefing.
He walked off minutes after the press conference began following an argument between television cameramen and print photographers. Obviously, he was annoyed at the chaos reigning in the middle while he set out to speak.
Board of Control for Cricket in India media committee member G S Walia tried to calm things down, but Dravid refused to stay back.
But he did return within minutes when the din settled down.
While all the shouting and jostling for space was a strange experience for Dravid, it was nothing new for the scribes gathered.
"This happens every time between the television cameramen and photographers," quipped a senior journalist
The slog sweep
The English batsmen were seeing trying out the slog sweep at their nets practice on Monday.
Under the watchful eyes of coach Duncan Fletcher, the batsmen used their long handle to good effect as they hit the ball a long way using the slog sweep over mid-wicket.
Obviously, mindful of the spin-friendly conditions and the attack that they would face, the slog-sweep could be some of the shots that would widely adopt in the series.
In fact, pacer Matthew Hoggard even tried a few reverse sweeps against the young net bowlers.
Harbhajan & co. must take note.
