Priya Punia took centre stage during India’s practice session at the Nursery Ground, Lord’s, just two days before the historic women’s Test against England.
The practice session began with the usual warm-up drills, followed by a brief foot-volley session as the Indian players were divided into two groups. The players then went through different fielding drills, including slip catching, forward short-leg catching and sharp catching drills using a distractor.
Fielding coach Munish Bali assisted with the forward short-leg catching drills, while head coach Amol Muzumdar helped with catches for the slip fielders and wicketkeepers. Interestingly, both Richa Ghosh and Yastika Bhatia had wicket-keeping sessions.
Before the batters moved to the nets, the bowlers were seen bowling on a side pitch of the main ground under the watchful eye of bowling coach Aavishkar Salvi. Renuka Singh Thakur also bowled, but her rhythm still did not appear to be at its peak compared to the other bowlers, both spinners and pacers.
All the players went through their batting sessions, with Jemimah Rodrigues, Smriti Mandhana, Harleen Deol, Yastika and Shafali Verma among the first to bat. It was there that Priya was seen putting in plenty of hard work with the bat, while there was no sign of Pratika Rawal.
Later, during the press conference, when Muzumdar was asked about Priya’s session, the head coach confirmed that Pratika had been ruled out of the match due to an injury she sustained during the recent India A games against England A in England.
It is a big opportunity for Priya, who is now back with the senior set-up after a gap of two years. She is yet to make her Test debut and all eyes will be on whether she finds a place in the playing XI.
After spending some time batting against throwdowns in turns, both Smriti and Jemimah were seen facing tennis-ball throwdowns. Smriti even took one of the throwdown specialists to the opposite side of the practice nets as she continued working on her shots.
Veteran all-rounder Deepti Sharma, before picking up the bat, was seen practising with only a stump in her hand. Later, all the specialist bowlers also had their batting stints as the curtains came down on another practice session for Team India ahead of the Lord’s Test, which begins on July 10.
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