Adelaide: India head coach Gautam Gambhir is set to rejoin the team in Australia ahead of the second Test at Adelaide Oval, having flown back home due to “personal reasons” after the big win in the series opener in Perth.
Gambhir missed the two-day warm-up game against the Prime Minister’s XI at Manuka Oval here, which was reduced to a 46-overs-a-side contest due to inclement weather. He had left the touring party on November 26, the scheduled final day of the first Test in Perth.
A rampaging India won the opening Test by 295 runs and with plenty of time left in the match.
The second Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, a pink-ball day-nighter, will start on Friday.
Finalising the playing XI will be Gambhir’s top priority after he links up with the Indian squad that has been strengthened further by the arrival of captain Rohit Sharma after he missed the opening game of the five-match series due to the birth of his second child.
In Gambhir’s absence, his three trusted lieutenants Abhishek Nayar, Ryan ten Doeschate and Morne Morkel oversaw the team’s training and preparations for the tour match, which India won by six wickets.
Now with Rohit’s arrival and Shubman Gill also in reckoning with a fine half-century in the warm-up game against the PM’s XI, Gambhir will have his task cut out as he gets down to select the playing XI.
Gill had also missed the Perth Test after fracturing his right thumb during a training session.
The Indian team arrived in Adelaide from Canberra on Monday afternoon and will have three practice sessions out of which two will be under lights on Tuesday and Thursday.
