Harry Brook vs Joe Root, Dawid Willey vs Jonny Bairstow were some interesting rivalries in England’s net session at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Friday.
But the eyes of a few media personnel and other ground staff went to England’s Ben Stokes every few minutes.
So much so that one of Delhi’s Senior Women’s Team player, watching the team train in the main ground, was left in splits to witness the English team training.
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“There is Ben Stokes, looks so smart,” she exclaimed to her teammate.
Ben Stokes has been nothing short of a dream-like player for England – one of the best all-rounders, which any team would love to have on their side. England had been lucid dreaming for quite some time, to have Stokes play the World Cup, and brought him out of his ODI retirement.
However, Stokes’ injury has left it just a dream for England to see their star playing.
The squad started their routine with football, some warm up exercises, and an interesting fielding drill wherein two players would start running from point A to point B, turn around, pick up the ball, and throw back at point A.
All this while, Stokes trained separately, focusing on his fitness and stamina. The all-rounder marked the distance and completed multiple short sprints. Stokes seems to be recovering well from his hip injury.
While other players moved to the nets, Stokes continued his session in the main ground for almost 50 minutes. It seemed like the southpaw was not going to be at the nets, but he showed up. He slowly padded himself and waited for a while before having a long batting session.
Notably, he didn’t face any frontline bowlers or net bowlers either. He only took throw downs for approximately 30 minutes. While he seemed to time the ball fluently on most occasions, there were a few instances when he tried to play a lofted shot but only skied the ball. The southpaw was left frustrated with himself.
The fact that he faced only throw downs, gives a corroborative evidence that he is set to miss out on Sunday’s World Cup match against Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Chris Woakes was a notable absentee from the training session due to illness and he too might miss out from the Afghanistan clash.
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Dawid Willey and Gus Atkinson bowled for longer duration in the nets and one of them might replace Woakes. While Willey bowled to Bairstow, Atkinson tried to dismantle Root in the adjoining net. Willey as well as Atkinson bowled some good deliveries but the batters looked more comfortable spending more time in the nets.
Root also faced Harry Brook’s spin for quite some time and the duo had fun time competing each other. While Brook managed to beat Root on a few occasions, Root smashed Brook on other instances. Brook also let out some words that were not family friendly, albeit in a friendly manner.
Root also had a second round with the bat and interestingly, took throw downs from skipper Jos Buttler who avoided batting in the nets.
Dawid Malan, who hit a match-winning 140 against Bangladesh, faced the spin duo of Adil Rashid and Moeen Ali in tandem after taking a few throw downs.
After the top order had batted in the nets, Rashid, Willey, Atkinson, and Reece Topley as well had a hit against throw downs and net bowlers. It wasn’t surprising that the side boasts of an envious batting depth.
While the team was largely focused throughout the session, the environment was eased out with Dua Lipa’s New Rules, Swedish House Mafia’s Don’t you worry child, and many more EDM songs playing in the background.
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