*The rehearsing cheer girls who left little for imagination, the blaring speakers, the myriad complimentary pass seekers, the young privileged autograph hunters... You know another Indian Premier League is upon us.*
All the hustle and bustle around them appeared to be making little impact on the players from Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore as they went through their practice here at the M Chinnaswamy stadium on Tuesday.
In the afternoon, it was Sachin Tendulkar who was the cynosure as the visitors made their way to the practice arena. Their skipper Ricky Ponting was away in Kolkata for the opening ceremony but there was no dearth of stars in the Mumbai camp -- from Kieron Pollard to Rohit Sharma and from Dwayne Smith to their latest acquisition Glenn Maxwell.
Their former captain and off-spinner Harbhajan Singh, ever the livewire, had the cheer girls rooting for him from the stands as he egged them on to groove along.
As the Punjab bowler returned to the pavilion after his team's training, he bumped into Royal Challengers' Muttiah Muralitharan and the two exponents of finger-spin had a mini-conference, sending the shutterbugs into overdrive.
Chris Gayle's arrival resulted in a similar scenario. The big Jamaican, who joined the practice following a well-deserved rest after his arrival on Monday, walked in with pads on and a few bats tucked under his arm, oblivious to all the attention he was getting from all and sundry. He didn't either bother as to who the bowler was as he sent them soaring high in the dark skies during the 'nets'.
While seamers RP Singh and company went full throttle, pace spearhead Zaheer Khan was once again conspicuous by his absence.
Besides Gayle, Tillakaratne Dilshan and Daniel Vettori also joined RCB's practice session which was cut short by at least 30 minutes due to rains.
Mumbai had more than three hours of training as the coaching staff of John Wright, Robin Singh and Jonty Rhodes ensured everything went according to plan along with chief-mentor Anil Kumble.
DH News Service Reported by Deccan Herald 15 hours ago.
All the hustle and bustle around them appeared to be making little impact on the players from Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore as they went through their practice here at the M Chinnaswamy stadium on Tuesday.
In the afternoon, it was Sachin Tendulkar who was the cynosure as the visitors made their way to the practice arena. Their skipper Ricky Ponting was away in Kolkata for the opening ceremony but there was no dearth of stars in the Mumbai camp -- from Kieron Pollard to Rohit Sharma and from Dwayne Smith to their latest acquisition Glenn Maxwell.
Their former captain and off-spinner Harbhajan Singh, ever the livewire, had the cheer girls rooting for him from the stands as he egged them on to groove along.
As the Punjab bowler returned to the pavilion after his team's training, he bumped into Royal Challengers' Muttiah Muralitharan and the two exponents of finger-spin had a mini-conference, sending the shutterbugs into overdrive.
Chris Gayle's arrival resulted in a similar scenario. The big Jamaican, who joined the practice following a well-deserved rest after his arrival on Monday, walked in with pads on and a few bats tucked under his arm, oblivious to all the attention he was getting from all and sundry. He didn't either bother as to who the bowler was as he sent them soaring high in the dark skies during the 'nets'.
While seamers RP Singh and company went full throttle, pace spearhead Zaheer Khan was once again conspicuous by his absence.
Besides Gayle, Tillakaratne Dilshan and Daniel Vettori also joined RCB's practice session which was cut short by at least 30 minutes due to rains.
Mumbai had more than three hours of training as the coaching staff of John Wright, Robin Singh and Jonty Rhodes ensured everything went according to plan along with chief-mentor Anil Kumble.
DH News Service Reported by Deccan Herald 15 hours ago.