Virat Kohli and Rishabh Pant couldn’t control themselves after teammate Sarfaraz Khan dropped a sitter while trying to hold onto a catch next to his face during India’s training session at the Optus Stadium ahead of India’s first Test against Australia in the Border Gavaskar Trophy. After training at the WACA for close to four days, the Indian team arrived at the Optus Stadium, venue for the first Test, on Tuesday. On day 1 of training at the venue, Kohli, Sarfaraz and Dhruv Jurel were standing next to each other for slip catching drills. Pant was also standing close by.
While all three got ready, the ball came in Sarfaraz‘s way as the Mumbai batter tried to catch the ball next to his face and eventually dropped. Reacting to the dropped catch, both Kohli and Pant were left in splits. While Pant fell down on the ground laughing, Kohli too joined the wicketkeeper as the duo mocked Sarfaraz.
Jurel also couldn’t keep calm either as he burst out laughing.
Meanwhile, the trio of Kohli, Pant and Jurel will be in action a couple of days later as India look to defend their Border-Gavaskar Trophy (BGT). With Shubman Gill and captain Rohit Sharma missing from the first Test, it is all likely that KL Rahul will open the batting with Yashasvi Jaiswal for India.
Kohli will come at No.4 while Devdutt Padikkal, who hit a hundred against Australia A recently, is likely to come at No.3. Pant and Jurel completes India’s top six in the batting lineup.
That puts Sarfaraz, who hadn’t been in best of forms recently, sans his maiden hundred against New Zealand in Bengaluru, out of the mix in the first Test.
In fact, Jurel, who made his Test debut earlier this year against England at home, impressed everyone with his half-centuries against Australia A in the second unofficia Test.