JOIN USRahane and Rohit were, of course, playing for Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy at the adjacent Brabourne stadium and weren’t expected to be present. The surprise presence, though, was that of Zaheer Khan, on the mend after an ankle surgery earlier in the year.
Zaheer limped off the first Test in England at Lord’s and hasn’t played competitively since, but in an encouraging development ahead of the tour of Australia next month, the left-arm paceman bowled at full tilt at nets at, among others, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid after a long stretching and sprinting session with physios Ashish Kaushik and South African Evan Speechly, who joined the team on Sunday.
Zaheer, who is expected to play next week for Mumbai in Ranji Trophy against Orissa, was the cynosure of all eyes, with shutterbugs having a field day, but his presence didn’t detract from the seriousness or intensity of the training session.
Virat Kohli, who had braced up for a Test comeback with a long session at the BKC on Saturday, too spent a lot of time honing his batting.