Team India sweats at nets ahead of England clash

Bangalore, Feb 22 (PTI) The Indian cricket team today hada strenous over three-hour net session mostly concentrating onbatting at the M Chinnaswamy stadium here, ahead of theirvital Group-B league match against England on Sunday.

Sachin Tendulkar, who underwent a MRI scan at a privatehospital last Sunday after feeling uneasiness on his kneesduring the Dhaka match against Bangladesh, had light weighttraining at the NCA gymnasium.

Ashish Nehra, who did not play in Bangladesh due to backspasm, also did some weight training.

Both Tendulkar and Nehra did not take to batting orbowling today, though the former was seen coming out to thenet session area from the gym twice in between his weighttraining sessions.

Opening batsman Virender Sehwag, pacer S Sreeshanth andspinner Ravichandran Ashwin also decided to stay back and didnot join the team either at the Gym or at the net sessions.

Yuvraj Singh also did not bat but bowled for about 20minutes before doing some stretching exercises.

Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli and skipper Mahendra SinghDhoni batted for more than about 30 minutes each at the nets,while Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh, who had a bit ofbowling at the nets, also sharpened their batting skills bytoiling at the nets longer than the regular batsmen.

Coach Gary Kristen was seen throwing the ball from adistance to both Zaheer and Harbhajan. At times, Kristenwalked up to the batsmen to advise them on certain battingtechniques.

Eleven members of the squad arrived at the stadium at2.20 pm and practised till 6.00 pm.

The Indian team would be practicing from eleven tomorrowmorning at the smaller NCA Grounds.