All posts tagged: Cricket training

Why pre-season practice with Yuvraj Singh could be the ‘Midas touch’ for Rishabh Pant

Why pre-season practice with Yuvraj Singh could be the ‘Midas touch’ for Rishabh Pant

Published by Webster

2 min readUpdated: Mar 23, 2026 12:14 AM IST In a bid to make up for lost time and opportunities in white-ball cricket, Rishabh Pant has seemingly undergone a rapid transformation in his physique and cricket over the last few months. Pant, who has been overlooked from India’s T20I squad over the last two years and demoted to the back-up wicket-keeper in ODI cricket, is gearing up for a pivotal IPL 2026 season with the Lucknow Super Giants. The LSG captain was signed at Rs 27.50 crore last year, but his season ended with middling figures, compounded by the captaincy tag that had appeared to bog him down. Before arriving in Chennai — where Lucknow have set up their pre-season base at former India bowling coach Bharat Arun’s academy, Coaching Beyond — Pant spent five days in Mumbai working with Yuvraj Singh, the Indian Express had reported last week. The sessions with Yuvraj, who has played a key role in the development of Shubman Gill and Abhishek Sharma, were focused on the basics: retaining shape, …

Why pre-season practice with Yuvraj Singh could be the ‘Midas touch’ for Rishabh Pant

Pant in good space, ready to give “fun” and “joy”

Published by Webster

3 min readMar 20, 2026 07:47 PM IST His first year as Lucknow SuperGiants captain was unprofitable with the bat and modestly successful as captain, but Rishabh Pant promised “fun” and “joy” in his second season. Spotting a warm smile, he said in an interview on Jio Hotstar: “I think I am in a good space, physically and mentally.” Since the Test series against South Africa last year, he has been barely in the mainstream. He spent much of the time training with former cricketer Yuvraj Singh to revive his white-ball batting. He says he has learned from the failings of the past. “All the seniors I speak to tell me that in cricket, you can’t take it lightly even for a day. Today could be your day, but tomorrow it might not be, and that could change again the day after. So, just keep working hard. Decision-making and handling situations are important, but consistently working on yourself to improve, even when things are going your way, is important,” he said. At times, he turned …

Why Ajantha Mendis backs Abrar Ahmed and Saim Ayub at Premadasa

Why Ajantha Mendis backs Abrar Ahmed and Saim Ayub at Premadasa

Published by Webster

In the practice nets at Premadasa stadium at the T20 World Cup, two ropes lie stretched across the pitch, perfectly aligned with off and leg stump. Between them, a left-handed batsman shuffles—forward, back, across—while Pakistan’s spinners hunt for perfection. The drill is simple: keep the ball within those tramlines until deception becomes instinct, until mystery becomes muscle memory. This is where Abrar Ahmed and Saim Ayub are forging their weapons for Sunday’s showdown against India at the Premadasa. And in a contest historically defined by Pakistan’s pace against Indian batting prowess, this match promises something entirely different—a battle won or lost in the flick of a wrist, the skid of a carrom ball. The OG speaks Ajantha Mendis remembers. Two decades ago, the Sri Lankan was cricket’s original illusionist, the godfather of mystery carrom-ball spin who bamboozled India with deliveries that seemed to defy physics itself. He took 116 wickets at the Premadasa, turning this very ground into his theatre of deception. When he speaks about the carrom ball—his carrom ball—there’s the quiet authority of …

Three friends, two Whatsapp groups, family support and toil

Three friends, two Whatsapp groups, family support and toil

Published by Webster

Beyond the roaring stadiums, there are quieter reunions. There are invisible hands — groundsmen who prepared pitches at dawn, coaches who went the extra mile, family members who sacrificed silently, rickshaw-pullers who drove a young boy’s hopes. Meet the unknown faces who shaped champions, the guardians who helped them dream, and who now await the players they’ve known since childhood to star on the big stage. While batting at his open net session one day, Suryakumar Yadav had just faced one ball before he decided to walk back towards the bowling crease. He had called over his friends who were all helping him regain his lost form. There was one simple question asked to each one and they had to give an open feedback on ‘why I’m not scoring runs’. Lack of runs had become a mystery and was slowly getting onto his nerves. He never showed it but he was desperately looking for an answer. Before heading into the New Zealand series, his poor form was a genuine concern. He had scored a mere …

Champions Trophy: Why Kuldeep Yadav, a dream bowler, a dazed fielder, amazes and aggravates team-mates in equal measure | Cricket News

Champions Trophy: Why Kuldeep Yadav, a dream bowler, a dazed fielder, amazes and aggravates team-mates in equal measure | Cricket News

Published by Parlour News

There are a couple of players slower than him on the field, there are players who drop more catches than him, but it’s Kuldeep Yadav who is the target of the most fierce gestures from the captain Rohit Sharma or the senior Virat Kohli. Not without a reason, as Kuldeep can inexplicably slip into a state of laxity – be it not collecting a throw (which prompted both Rohit and Kohli to have a go at him during the game against Australia and Kohli and Jadeja to have a spray in the final against New Zealand), or bowling flatter, and not looking for wickets. “Aisa daalega toh, main bowling nahi doonga,” Rohit had once yelled from the slips in a Test. What makes Kuldeep Yadav the target for such ire? Because Rohit knows the value of Kuldeep the strike-bowler and the player when not wandering in the garden. Last May, months after he made his comeback from a knee injury that had threatened to derail him, Kuldeep would talk about his relationship with the captain: …

Champions Trophy: How Matt Henry removed Shubman Gill by targeting his one batting weakness | Cricket News

Champions Trophy: How Matt Henry removed Shubman Gill by targeting his one batting weakness | Cricket News

Published by Webster

It’s amazing really how Shubman Gill hasn’t managed to erase that one weakness in his batting for all these years: the slow weight transfer onto the front foot. Sunday afternoon provided yet another iteration of the deja-vu. New Zealand in particular have done it often before; Kyle Jamieson on at least two occasions, Tim Southee and this time it was Matt Henry. Other bowlers too have got him with the same ball — Kagiso Rabada, James Anderson and Mohammad Shami (in the IPL). The television coverage has saturated our minds’ by now about what that good length is: say 6 to 8 metres from the batsman’s stumps. Matt Henry’s delivery landed on a length, say closer to the 8m and skidded in. Anything closer to him, Gill has no issues. Even closer to the 6m mark from his stumps, he has relatively less issues as he lets his wonderful hands do the jailbreak for him. Henry’s delivery skidded in a bit from that length and Gill was on the move, trying to work it around …

It’s beyond a game, that’s the beauty of India-Pakistan cricket, says Pakistan coach Aaqib Javed | Cricket News

It’s beyond a game, that’s the beauty of India-Pakistan cricket, says Pakistan coach Aaqib Javed | Cricket News

Published by Webster

If one thought Pakistan coming to Dubai could ease the pressure of them playing in front of home fans, in a must-win contest against India, their head coach Aaqib Javed seemed more intent on treating Sunday’s clash as ‘beyond a game’. He wouldn’t stop there, and even claimed: ‘If you remove this pressure, what’s left in the Pakistan-India game? Passion and pressure is what is needed to show a player his performance.” Already facing pressure of expectations of doing well in the first ICC event they are hosting in 29 years, they go into the game against India with the added pressure of this being a must-win fixture. “There is no game you can say you play without pressure. The first game we lost, okay. New Zealand is a very strong team. They have good balance… After losing a game there is another good chance for you to win here and win the third one and make it to the semis. It is India and Pakistan. It doesn’t matter if it is a knockout or …

ICC Champions Trophy: Kohli against spin, countering sluggish surface, middle-overs gameplan the focus as India prepare to take on Pakistan | Cricket News

ICC Champions Trophy: Kohli against spin, countering sluggish surface, middle-overs gameplan the focus as India prepare to take on Pakistan | Cricket News

Published by Parlour News

After a convincing win over Bangladesh in their opening fixture, there was a sense of purpose and direction in how India went about their preparations on the eve of their big-ticket match against Pakistan on Sunday. Given an off-day on Friday, some of them used the time to watch movies, while a few of them went for dinners. But at the ICC Academy ground on Saturday, they turned up an hour early for the training session that was officially scheduled to start at 1 pm. Matches against Pakistan often bring some additional drama. But not this time. If anything, this team appeared oblivious to it, instead focusing on the job at hand. There was no talk of this being a special game or the desperate need to do well to win over the fans. Instead, they are looking inward. India may have brushed aside Bangladesh, but there are a few screws waiting to be tightened before this becomes the well-oiled machine one saw at the 2023 50-over World Cup. With the first match giving clear …

CSK academy to facilitate seven West Indies youngsters for special training

CSK academy to facilitate seven West Indies youngsters for special training

Published by Webster

Cricket West Indies has announced that seven of their youngsters will undergo specialized training at the Chennai Super Kings Academy. Assited by Ramesh Subasinghe and assistant coach Rohan Nurse, Kirk McKenzie, Matthew Nandu, and Kevin Wickham — along with current and former West Indies Academy players Teddy Bishop and Jewel Andrew, and former West Indies Under-19 players Jordan Johnson and Ackeem Auguste. Director of Cricket, Miles Bascombe, said: “The Chennai Academy will host these seven batsmen and aim to equip them with skills and experience in navigating spinning conditions. “Our coaches will be on hand to ensure that the learnings in the period can be consolidated and extended to other players in the region through the academy.” The players will engage in a two-day match and three white-ball fixtures as part of their training at the CSK Academy. They will work alongside experienced coaches, including CSK Academy Director Sriram Krishnamurthy. Inspired from New Zealand? Earlier New Zealand has whitewashed India 3-0 and Kiwi middle-order batter Rachin Ravindra went to CSK academy ahead of their one-off …