The Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) have have started their traini g sesssions ahead of the IPL 2020 in a full flow after compleying their six-day quarantine period. After the likes of Virat Kohli sweated it out in the nets on Saturday, other players including AB de Villiers and Gurkeerat Mann had hits in the nets.
While bowlers Chris Still remember both those games like they happened on Sunday and Umesh Yadav was only seen bowling some fiery deliveries and wicket-keepers including De Villiers and Parthiv Patel had some ‘keeping practice’ as well.
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While players were practicing hard in the nets it was the job of the support staff to prevent the players from going overboard with their training as several players would have been eager to play after months of downtime due to the lockdown. In a video posted on social media, RCB gave a sneak peek into the second day of training in Dubai.
Picking up from right where they left off months ago, our stars had no problems getting back into the groove as they sweated it out on Day 2️⃣ of the pre-season camp! 💪🏻#PlayBold #IPL2020 #WeAreChallengers pic.twitter.com/gMWImIGLJf
— Royal Challengers Bangalore (@RCBTweets) August 31, 2020
In the video, after having practicing in nets under lights at the ICC Academy, AB de Villiers said, “It was really good, very enjoyable to be out there. It’s night time here – a bit blurry, the lights and the wicket a bit sticky. Actually, if I had it my way (this is) exactly the way I’d like my first net to be after a long time.”
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De Villiers can also been seen taking throwdowns and facing deliveries from net bowlers even as his fellow South African Chris Morris and Umesh Yadav deliveries some fiery balls. Mann faced spin from Pawan Negi and coach Simon Katich while practicing aerial shots. He “loved the session.”
Next up were fielding drills where the players were seen practicing close-in and outfield catching. The wicket-keepers got into the act as well. Talking about the same, Parthiv Patel said, “Just trying to make sure that the batting drills and ‘keeping drills have the same number of balls.”
However, the coaches ensured the players didn’t go overboard with their training and risk injuring themselves. On the other hand, the RCB trainer, Shankar Basu said, “There are three things we have to be very mindful (of) – one, players are coming back after a long time and they will ready to jump and go gung-ho. That is our job to pull them back initially. “
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He further elaborated, “Number two, there’s oppressive heat here. That can be a telling thing here. And thirdly, in the gym – all along they have been doing a lot of gym. We need to find the right balance in the gym. From now on it (the gym workouts) should aid the skill part and not the other way around.”
