The batsmen batted in pairs, but from one end only, rotating the strike every six balls or so. The open-wicket practice gave them the freedom of batting in whichever way they wanted. Virender Sehwag, after getting his eye in, tried to hit the bowlers all over the ground, smashing sixes regularly. Harbhajan Singh suffered the most at the hands of Sehwag.
Rahul Dravid, on the other hand, looked to perfect his defence, testing his judgement of when to leave outside the off stump. Ishant Sharma and Sachin Tendulkar had a good little session, too, walking up to each other after almost every delivery and discussing what was right and what was wrong.
The bowlers got an intense workout as well: Ishant Sharma bowled for an hour and 10 minutes in two spells, Zaheer Khan bowled his two for an hour, and Munaf Patel bowled for an hour without a break. Besides the normal stumps, the bowlers had a fifth stump as a guide so that they could get used to bowling the just-outside-the-off-stump line.