India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and England’s Stuart Broad both missed their teams’ respective training sessions at The Oval yesterday (Wednesday) ahead of the fifth Test, which starts tomorrow (Friday).
When the Indian team took the field two days before the final Test, captain Dhoni was missing. It was coach Duncan Fletcher and Virat Kohli who addressed the team.
Dhoni’s absence attracted questions regarding his availability for the Test as he had taken quite a few blows to his body throughout the series, but it later emerged that he had opted out of the session and had decided to go for some shooting practice at a firing range.
Whether or not that was the best way to get fired up for the last match of a gruelling series remains to be seen but the Indians did get a decent work out at The Oval.
On his part, fast-medium bowler Broad too did not take part in the proceedings.
Broad, man-of-the-match with a first innings six for 25 in England’s innings and 54 run win in the fourth Test at Old Trafford, suffered a broken nose while batting after being hit by a bouncer from India fast bowler Varun Aaron.
It is expected that Broad will play in the Test, with the paceman having suggested he might do so wearing a face mask.
And England’s Joe Root was confident that Broad would take the new ball alongside James Anderson.
“It’s not very pretty,” said Root. “He’s not got his ‘boy-band’ looks you’d normally associate with Stuart.
“He’s milking it definitely, as you’ll probably have seen on all the social network sites.
“But I’m sure he’ll be desperate to play on Friday. He’s obviously in good form and will be wanting to finish the series strongly with the rest of us.”
England’s victory in Manchester saw them continue their fightback from 1-0 down in the series after a 95-run defeat in the second Test at Lord’s was followed by a 266-run win in the third Test at Southampton.
They are now 2-1 up with just one to play.
However, Root had a word of caution.
“I don’t think we can really rest on the fact we’ve played well in the last couple of games. We will really try to nail down what has been a good little bit of form in the last two games.
“We’re definitely not going to take India lightly.”
India have troubled England’s batsmen with their use of the short ball throughout the series, a reminder of their struggles against Mitchell Johnson during the 5-0 Ashes thrashing in Australia.
“We know India are going to come very hard at us, and we’ll have to make sure we’ve got all bases covered,” said Root.
“That (short ball) will be one area I’m sure a lot of the lads will be working on within their own games.”
