Sun, sweat and plenty of fluids

Is John Wright the hardest-working man in Indian cricket? Bright and early, Wright was at the Sardar Patel stadium in the nets with batch after batch of cricketers, putting young hopeful net-bowlers through their paces, liaising with journalists and security personnel, and watching the batsmen out of the corner of his eye. The sun climbed higher in the sky, the beads of sweat grew more pronounced, and yet Wright soldiered on. Sourav Ganguly left for a press conference as Wright remained at the nets. And then, after Ganguly and Fleming had addressed the media, Wright went onto the ground for a solitary jog around the ropes - at high noon! Camera crew after camera crew did their signing-off pieces just off the grass, and Wright, head down, knees pounding rhythmically, kept going. This is one New Zealander who has acclimatised to Ahmedabad's heat already.

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The nets on the day before the first Test were a reunion of what seemed like Parthiv Patel's friends. As the diminutive Parthiv stood by and made wisecracks, bowlers lined up to have a go at the cream of the Indian batting. Parthiv, after all, is still in his teens, and many of Ahmedabad's young club cricketers must have been buddies during his early years here. Finally Parthiv himself padded up, and his friends lined up to bowl to their boy-gone-big. But L Balaji stopped them to have first strike - and beat Parthiv with his third ball. Parthiv, however, bounced back quick enough, using his feet well to the spinners and patiently leaving anything outside off stump.

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In tents next to the six nets are tables staggering under the weight of Aquafina bottles, Glucon-D packets, lemons and lemon-squeezers. In conditions like these, it is imperative to stay as far from dehydration as possible, and the only thing - aside from a cell-phone - that every journalist is carrying here is a bottle of water, frost still visible on the sides. Without even waiting to towel off the sweat, cricketers make a beeline for the table to replenish the liquid stuff. Many drinks breaks loom during the course of this Test match.

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No bowling at the middle Indian net happened for almost 15 minutes, even as Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman on either side middled it with disarming ease. Rahul Dravid and Virender Sehwag were engaged in deep discussion, with Dravid pointing out the position of Sehwag's front shoulder during his frontand back-foot defensive strokes. Dravid illustrated this by shadow-defending off either foot, asking Sehwag to do the same, and then correcting the imbalance in his shoulders. Another person taking his batting seriously was Balaji, whose extended stay at the wicket was decisive during the Irani Trophy. In sharp contrast was Harbhajan Singh who padded up, strode disinterestedly to the crease, and let fly at Ball One.