NEW DELHI: Jasprit Bumrah, Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel rested while the rest of the Indian squad hit the ground running less than two days after their memorable Asia Cup triumph, ahead of the first of two Tests against the West Indies in Ahmedabad on Tuesday.
The team, including captain Shubman Gill and head coach Gautam Gambhir, arrived overnight between Monday and Tuesday and trained for nearly three hours at the Narendra Modi Stadium.
With minimal turnaround time between Sunday's white-ball tournament and a series part of the World Test Championship starting Thursday, India will also need to carefully manage player workloads.
"𝙃𝙖𝙖𝙧 𝙠𝙖𝙧 𝙟𝙚𝙚𝙩𝙣𝙚 𝙫𝙖𝙡𝙚 𝙠𝙤 𝙗𝙖𝙖𝙯𝙞𝙜𝙖𝙧 𝙠𝙚𝙝𝙩𝙚 𝙝𝙖𝙞" ✨
— Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) September 30, 2025
Lock, load & fire! #TeamIndia's gun speedster, #MohammedSiraj, will be fired up against West Indies in an exciting home Test series! 🔥
WATCH HIM 👉🏻 #INDvWI | 1st TEST starts THU, OCT 2 on Star… pic.twitter.com/V5dBAzMbxl
The session began with light warm-ups and catching drills before moving to the nets, where batters had extended practice while the pace bowlers put in focused work on their bowling.
Mohammed Siraj and Prasidh Krishna, who featured in India A's second four-day unofficial Test against Australia A - a match they won by five wickets - bowled for nearly 45 minutes as the weather cleared for the home team.
Both right-arm pacers found good rhythm, generating pace and bounce on the practice wickets following a spell of rain.
Having taken a look at the pitch after arrival, Gambhir had another look at the surface after India winded up their training.
Openers Yashasvi Jaiswal and KL Rahul looked in supreme touch and so did wicketkeeper-batter Dhruv Jurel, who led India A in the second unofficial Test.
The other middle-order batters B Sai Sudharsan and Devdutt Padikkal too looked in good rhythm but there were some troubles for skipper Gill, who was troubled by his India pacers as well as the throw down specialist.
#WATCH | Gujarat | Indian cricket team head coach Gautam Gambhir and cricketer Kuldeep Yadav reached Ahmedabad earlier today pic.twitter.com/lGeVL72cAw
— ANI (@ANI) September 30, 2025
Amid a few that found the sweet spot of his bat, Gill also had a few hits and misses as well as a few outside edges troubling him when he prodded forward to defend. On one occasion, he was also taken by surprise as a rising delivery hit his gloves chest high.
Nevertheless, Gill kept changing the nets and batting against all possible combinations between pace, spin and throw downs as the 26-year-old gears up to lead India in his first home Test as the full-time captain.
It will also be the first home assignment in the World Test Championship for Gill and his new Indian Test side which impressed one and all with their gumption and skills both in England, drawing the hard-fought series 2-2.
Who will get the nod as extra batter?
With the top four slots fixed, it remains to be seen who would be the team management's choice for an extra batter between Nitish Reddy and Padikkal.
While Padikkal did not seem to have put a foot wrong in the nets following his 150 in the first unofficial Test against Australia A, Reddy also showcased fine rhythm particularly while bowling alongside Siraj and Prasidh.
Reddy’s inclusion will provide the team with a third seam bowling option and it remains to be seen if the team management leans towards having that choice in the middle before the contest gets underway.
These two are likely to feature in the selection debate for the playing eleven as the rest of the line-up seems settled comprising Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep, Siraj and Bumrah.
Kuldeep, who took a match-winning four-for in the Asia Cup final, could prove to be the biggest challenge for a frail West Indies line-up which does not have a great deal of experience of Indian conditions.
Earlier in the day, the West Indies were forced to train in the indoor nets as a spell of shower curtailed their nets session to only about half an hour.
(With PTI Inputs)