Dhoni, Yuvraj sweat it out in the nets as India A prepare to take on England

India A led by MS Dhoni will play England in the first warm-up match at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai today. The team has a lot of star power with the likes of Yuvraj Singh, Shikhar Dhawan, Ashish Nehra and of course skipper Dhoni who will be leading the team for one last time. Most of them haven’t played a lot of international cricket of late owing to injuries while others are making a comeback and thus the training session on the eve of the game was all the more important.

All the players spent a good amount of time in the nets getting their act together. Shikhar Dhawan though looked fit but didn’t give the best signs in terms of batting as he went behind the outside off deliveries trying to smash them and missed. Something which saw his downfall in the Indian team of late.

Even Dhoni had to wait for a while until he got the ball out of the middle of his bat. He batted against both pacers and spinners and most of them were deposited well into the empty stands. He played the big shots like he mostly does in the practice sessions and once he felt it was all good, he walked away towards the fans and obliged for a few autographs.

Yuvraj practiced both his trades batted as well as bowled. Dhoni would certainly want to use Yuvi with the ball against the English side despite having two spinners in the team. Ambati Rayudu who has been out of favour for some time wasn’t really comfortable to start with and it took him a while before the ball found the middle of the bat. Mandeep Singh played a few long shots and will want to cash on this opportunity and make a case for himself in the larger picture.

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Sanju Samson who has had a tough time of late with the Kerala Cricket Association was seen talking to Dhoni and picking his mind, taking wicketkeeping tips from the pro. Allrounder Hardik Pandya bowled some good bouncers to Samson and indicated that he was fully fit and ready to star in the game. He would be the third seamer in the team with senior-pro Ashish Nehra and Mohit Sharma. Punjab pacer Siddharth Kaul has is also a part of the India A team and will be interesting to see how the skipper uses him.

The two spinners in the team are chinaman Kuldeep Yadav and leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal.

India A squad:

Shikhar Dhawan, Mandeep Singh, Ambati Rayudu, Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni (C & wk), Sanju Samson, Hardik Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Ashish Nehra, Mohit Sharma, Siddharth Kaul

Watch: Yuvraj Singh smashes it over long-on