Barring Rajasthan’s Pankaj Singh, whose flight from Jaipiur was delayed, the rest of the bowlers left from here on Sunday for the five-day fitness camp beginning on Monday at Mysore’s Infosys Campus.

The team bus left the National Cricket Academy at 4.00 pm carrying trainer Gregory King along with Ajit Agarkar, Irfan Pathan, Munaf Patel, Rudra Pratap Singh, Vikram Raj Vir Singh, Ishant Sharma, Ranadeb Bose, Ramesh Powar, Rajesh Pawar, Pragyan Ojha and Piyush Chawla.

Paceman S Sreesanth, who is part of an Asian XI Twenty20 squad, will join the camp on June 6 after playing in the Afro-Asia Twenty20 game here on June 5, while left-armer Zaheer Khan and off-spinner Harbhajan Singh will skip the camp as they will be part of the Asian XI that will take on an African XI for the Afro-Asia Cup in Bangalore and Chennai.

Bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad, who will be overseeing the proceedings, and leggie Anil Kumble had left earlier in the day.

Piyush for camp
In a sudden development, leg-spinner Chawla, who was to leave for Australia for a five-week training stint at the Commonwealth Bank Centre of Excellence, was asked to stay back at the last minute by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), and instead attend the bowlers’ camp.

Chawla had been all set to leave for Australia by Saturday midnight flight via Singapore.

While Chawla maintained he had no idea about why he had been asked not to travel, it is learnt that the UP bowler had been asked to stay on as there is a possibility that he might be picked for the Ireland series.

Training course
In that case, it would have been difficult for him to travel to Ireland from Australia midway through his training course.

Even if Chawla doesn’t get selected in the side, he won’t be losing out on much as the youngster will be sent to train under Terry Jenner, who will be visiting the MRF Pace Foundation in Chennai probably later this month.
Jenner is widely regarded as legendary Australian leg-spinner Shane Warne’s mentor.

National Cricket Academy Administrative Manager Col Nair said that a replacement for Chawla would be proposed to NCA Chairman Kapil Dev.

“If he gives his consent, the boy will be sent to Australia soon,” Nair added.