IND vs AFG: Shikhar Dhawan walks off midway from the training session

The India vs Afghanistan historic Test match is scheduled to start in Bangalore tomorrow and both the teams spent some quality time in the nets today ironing out their final plans. However, the Indian team suffered a potential blow on the eve of the game. Opener Shikhar Dhawan who started off with the regular fitness drills left the nets midway and didn’t resume training.

The fact that he had to cut the session short could be a cause of concern for the team management. There is no official word on whether he was just sore or if he has pulled a muscle. In case he is unavailable for the game the team will open with his partner Murali Vijay and the local boy Lokesh Rahul. If Dhawan doesn’t play and Rahul opens, that also creates an opportunity for Karun Nair to find a spot in the middle-order.

As far as the injury scare is concerned, the left-hander had turned up and began the training with running between the wickets and that’s where he looked in some sort of discomfort. He wasn’t fluent and it appeared as if he had a niggle. He had a talk with the team’s fitness trainer Shankar Basu as well as physio Patrick Farhat.

Following the discussion, Dhawan ended his training session and it was KL Rahul who elongated his stay in the nets. With Virat Kohli missing out on the game and Dhawan’s participation in doubt it can be expected that Nair will bat at 4 in place of the skipper.

It was an optional training session and the team management asked most of their key players to rest before the start of the match. Four of their bowlers – two pacers Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav and both the spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja didn’t train, neither did Hardik Pandya.

The Bangalore pitch is expected to assist the spinners while there are talks that it will be a good one for the batsmen. Based on how it looks on the day the stand-in skipper Ajinkya Rahane might want to decide on including the extra spinner in Kuldeep Yadav

India squad for the one-off Test

Murali Vijay, Lokesh Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane(c), Karun Nair, Dinesh Karthik(w), Hardik Pandya, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Shikhar Dhawan, Kuldeep Yadav, Shardul Thakur, Navdeep Saini

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