IND vs WI: Rain in Trinidad forces Team India to practice indoors ahead of first ODI

Team India arrived in Trinidad on Tuesday ahead of the first ODI of the three-match series against West Indies. The Men in Blue will face off against the Caribbean side in the first ODI on Friday, but before that, the Shikhar Dhawan-led side's final training session got washed out because of rain. 

Thus, the Indian team had to practice indoors as they couldn't complete their outdoor session because of rain. The BCCI on Thursday shared a video of the Indian team undergoing an indoor nets session. 

"Gearing up for ODI No.1 against the West Indies. Here's @ShubmanGill giving a lowdown on #TeamIndia's first net session in Trinidad," said BCCI as it posted a video of the indoor training session.

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Shikhar Dhawan will lead Team India in the three-match ODI series in West Indies as regular skipper Rohit Sharma, senior batter Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya, who led India in the T20I series in Ireland, Jasprit Bumrah, who led India in the rescheduled fifth Test of the 2021 series at Lord's, and Mohammed Shami have all been rested.

Gearing up for ODI No.1 against the West Indies

Here's @ShubmanGill giving a lowdown on #TeamIndia's first net session in Trinidad #WIvIND pic.twitter.com/oxF0dHJfOI — BCCI (@BCCI) July 21, 2022

With so many big names absent from the squad, the Indian selectors will test the likes of batsmen Ishan Kishan, Shubman Gill and Suryakumar Yadav, who along with all-rounder Deepak Hooda are expected to come to the fore.

The Indian team had flown to Trinidad from the United Kingdom which is experiencing its hottest summer and landed on a rainy Caribbean island. So, the team management decided to use the indoor facilities to tune up for the upcoming games.

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"As we have just come from the UK, we thought that it would be nice to have an (outdoor) practice session. But it started raining. So, it's always better to have a knock in the indoor facilities rather than having no session," said opener Shubman Gill in the video tweeted by BCCI.

"It was a good session as we got to do some specific things like playing underarm balls," said Gill. Gill said the players are looking forward to the chance of playing a good white-ball side like West Indies.

"I am feeling great and we all are really excited and really buzzed about these three ODIs. We feel that it would be a good series," Gill said.

With inputs from IANS