Cricket World Cup 2023: Shreyas Iyer Works On 'Weakness'; Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli Skip Optional Practice

With his vulnerability against the short ball coming to the fore once again, India number four Shreyas Iyer trained with the aim of overcoming his longstanding struggles ahead of the Cricket World Cup 2023 game against Sri Lanka in Mumbai on Thursday. None of the top-order guns — captain Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Shubman Gill — were in attendance for the optional session. Iyer versus the short ball was the focal point. The team's famed bowling attack, which delivered a fabulous 100-run victory over England last Sunday, also opted for rest.

Perched at the top of the World Cup points table and with a spot in the semifinals virtually sealed for Rohit and Co, it is only imperative that the team keeps ironing out the areas of concern along the way.

Iyer's troubles against the short ball, combined with the lack of big scores as the preferred No 4, is certainly something that the team management and the player want to overcome and it was evident as far as his approach to the session on Tuesday was concerned.

The right-handed batter, who is back to his homeground that he shares with skipper Rohit, Suryakumar Yadav and Shardul Thakur in this Indian squad for the World Cup, faced plenty of short balls from throwdown specialists in the session that lasted for nearly two hours under the sun.

While he did face some local net bowlers to begin with, the focus point of the session soon turned into having Iyer facing innumerable short balls hurled at him by India's throwdown specialists D Raghavendra, the left-handed Sri Lankan Nuwan Seneviratne and batting coach Vikram Rathour along with a few others.

Having long batting stints on either side of the strip on which India will take on Sri Lanka, Iyer was also seen sporting a chest