After the turn of the bowlers, the batsmen will be put through a four-day rigorous fitness drill at the National Cricket Academy here from Saturday as India’s cricketers continue their preparations for a massively busy season ahead.

While 14 bowlers were put through their paces behind closed doors at the Infosys Campus in Mysore for five days ending Friday, 12 batsmen will hone their fitness levels under the watchful eyes of physical trainer Greg King and fielding coach Robin Singh over the next four days.

In all, 15 batsmen were hand-picked for this camp, but former skipper Sourav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh and Mahendra Singh Dhoni will most certainly miss the first two days at least as they are doing duty for Asia XI in the Afro-Asia Cup in Chennai. Whether they will make it to Bangalore on Monday, after three games in five days, remains to be seen, though sources indicated that not only the batting quartet but also bowlers Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh, who missed the Mysore tryst because of Asia XI duties, too will drop in for a day at the batsmen’s camp.

Yoga has been one of the constants in the numerous pre-season camps that began during John Wright’s tenure as the national coach. Not surprisingly, it is a session of yoga at the hotel where the players have been put up that will kick-start this camp as well, after which the players will be driven down to the NCA for fitness assessments.

As has been the norm all these years, tests like the skin-fold test which measures the ratio of fat to body mass will be conducted, after which the players will be put through ‘SAQ’ drills. “SAQ stands for Speed, Agility and Quickness,” said trainer Ramji Srinivasan, who will assist King. “There will be new drills; the exercises will be functional and specific to batsmen as well as wicketkeepers.” There are two stumpers among the batting probables — Dhoni and Dinesh Kaarthick, now well on the road to establishing himself as a regular Test opener.

The presence of skipper Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, perhaps Ganguly and Anil Kumble — this is, after all, the leggie’s home town — will provide the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) with the perfect opportunity to address the players’ reservations as regards the new contracts that have been overdue for a while now. The BCCI-player talks on June 11 will be followed by the national selectors’ meeting in New Delhi on June 12 to pick the sides to play one-day internationals in Ireland later this month, and Test matches and one-dayers in England beginning in the third week of July.

The selected players will then attend a four-day skills camp, also at the NCA from next Wednesday when, it is expected, they will link up with their new coach, expected to be South African Graham Ford.

The players for the batsmen’s camp: Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Wasim Jaffer, Dinesh Kaarthick, Gautam Gambhir, Robin Uthappa, Virender Sehwag, VVS Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Dinesh Mongia, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Rohit Sharma, Mohammad Kaif, S Badrinath.