On what was supposed to be a rest day for the Indian cricket team, it is reliably learnt that vice-captain Shubman Gill had an “informal training session” at the ICC Academy in Dubai on Thursday.
Throwdown specialists, accompanied by some members of the support staff, were with Gill at the global cricket body’s training facility. They returned to the team hotel in their kits with the necessary gear in the evening hours.
It can’t be confirmed at this stage if there were other players too, but it wasn’t a big contingent as most of the players are either in their respective hotel rooms on the rest day or out and about in the city.
“Shubman Gill trained with members of the support staff for an informal session. Since it wasn’t an official training day, it looks like a personal session. But it wasn’t a marathon one and took place in the afternoon hours,” says a well placed source.
India had a session under lights on Wednesday, and all players — except Shubman Gill — were in attendance.
The Indian vice-captain made up for the missed session and trained today and will also be joining the team’s session on Friday, their last before the group stage game against New Zealand on March 2.
New Zealand are scheduled to train in the afternoon while India will continue to train under lights. All eyes will be on Rohit Sharma as the Indian captain didn’t do a lot of physical activity on Wednesday and only did some light jogging under the watchful eyes of S&C coach Soham Desai.
Rohit did some damage to his hamstring in the game against Pakistan, and his movements on Friday will surely give an indication on his participation for the New Zealand clash.