Chennai likely to roll out predominantly red soil pitch for first Test against Bangladesh, as preseason camp begins

A black-soil pitch scuffed up by spike marks creating black spots on the full-length area on either side, slightly damp with a tinge of grass, greeted India at their first pre-season camp that began on Friday at the MA Chidambaram Stadium. On a day when temperatures touched 370C, India’s training session began at 9.30 am and extended till 3 pm with the entire team in attendance.

India, who are scheduled to face Bangladesh in the first Test here starting September 19, have a busy schedule ahead of them. With as many as 10 Tests lined up in the next four months, the pre-season camp was a clear reflection that it wasn’t just preparation for the Bangladesh series, but also for the upcoming fixtures against New Zealand (3 Tests) at home and Australia (5 Tests) away.

Although the nets at the MAC ‘B’ stadium are generally used for training purposes, India chose to use the spare centre-wicket at the main ground for their camp. The session began with Rohit Sharma, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill and Virat Kohli batting in the two nets. The black soil pitch was allotted to face the spinners and on the far side, pacers including Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj lined up.

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— BCCI (@BCCI) September 13, 2024

With Bangladesh having a good combination of attack, India have even chosen their net bowlers accordingly. With Shakib Al Hasan, Taijul Islam – two contrasting left-arm spinners in Bangladesh ranks — and New Zealand having Ajaz Patel, Mitchell Santner and Rachin Ravindra in the mix who all offer different challenges in terms of trajectory and release points, India’s choice of net bowlers made for an interesting move.

Apart from Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel, here they had Tamil Nadu’s S Ajith Ram, M Siddharth and P Vignesh (all Slow Left Orthodox). And with off-spinners posing plenty of questions to them off-late, apart from R Ashwin, the batsmen fronted up against Tamil Nadu’s Lakshay Jain and Mumbai’s Ashwin-clone Himanshu Singh.

India batsmen’s plan against the spinners mostly centred around using the feet and bringing out the sweeps and reverse-sweeps. Time and again, batsmen used the conventional and paddle sweep to deliveries that landed on the rough outside off-stump. And at times when it landed in the line of the stumps, they brought out the reverse-sweeps. In the morning session that extended till 12 pm, apart from Rohit, Jaiswal, Gill and Kohli, Jadeja, Ashwin, Bumrah and Siraj had a long outing with the bat.

In the other nets, which predominantly had a red-soil content, India’s frontline attack shared the duties with the net bowlers.

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— BCCI (@BCCI) September 13, 2024

And in the afternoon session that began after a 40-minute break, it was the turn of KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, Dhruv Jurel, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Akash Deep and Yash Dayal to toil under the sun. Like the morning session, each of the batsmen and bowlers had long sessions in the middle to get acclimatised to the long format.

Since playing the four-match Test series against England at the start of the year, India have predominantly played only T20s.

Apart from India’s frontline pacers, the likes of Arpit Guleria, Gurnoon Brar, Yudhvir Singh, Vaibhav Arora, Simarjeet Singh, Gurjapneet Singh were used as net bowlers.

Morkel joins the team

India’s newly appointed bowling coach Morne Morkel linked with the team here on Thursday. The tall South African was seen spending a majority of the time with the pace pack. As one after the other lined up to bowl, Morkel would either stand behind the batsmen or position himself almost like an umpire at the non-strikers end.

Though Gautam Gambhir and the rest of the support staff had begun their journey in Sri Lanka, this is Morkel’s first assignment as a coach. The Indian Express understands that the South African will have a one-on-one introductory session with the bowlers in the coming days.

Red-soil pitch for Test

With Bangladesh used to playing on black soil pitches at home that are usually on the slower side, India are set to play the first Test on a pitch which predominantly has red soil content. Though there are still five days to go for the Test, the pitch which had a good grass cover was covered by the groundstaff as early as 11.30 am to prevent it from breaking.

Like in 2019, when they rolled out seamer-friendly conditions in Indore and Kolkata – India’s spinners picked only five of the 40 Bangladesh wickets to fall, it shouldn’t come as a surprise if the hosts follow a similar tactic this time as well. Back then, with a tour of Australia around the corner, India had opted to spice up the pitch with plenty of juice in it.

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