Now, as cricket becomes more professional and stylised, some other accessories have made their appearance. Here’s a quick checklist of the new must-haves for today’s T20 teams:

•Half-bat: A modified version of a cricket bat, this used to reduce the load on coaches while hitting balls during catching practice. Now available in hardened plastic for greater height and speed.

•Baseball gloves: Every team now has more than a dozen baseball gloves — one for each player when they warm-up by throwing balls to each other in pairs.

•Plastic stumps: Easy to carry, they come with a spike or a platform at the base. The plastic is flexible, allowing hits without uprooting the stumps so that practice isn’t frequently disrupted.

•Bounce-pad: Used in close-catching, it comes in different shapes and sizes to vary the degree of unpredictability for fielders.

•Fielding net: A semi-circular net that is erected behind the stumps to collect all throws in the absence of a wicketkeeper.

•Big palm: Used by the Indian team, it is worn on the hand as a slip-catching tool to deflect throws towards the cordon of fielders.

•Boxing gloves: A new entrant in cricket, used by both physios and psychologists — to strengthen shoulder muscles and channelise aggression.

•Tennis racquet and balls: Used to help batsmen cope with greater pace and height, especially before a match on a bouncy pitch.

•Volleyball or frisbee: Teams have various methods of warming up — gone are the days where players would just run laps. These games make team mates bond with each other as well.

•Portable massage table: A must for international cricketers in today’s hectic calendar. When folded, it looks like an oversized brief case.

•Plastic cones: Used to define the boundary of a player’s warm-up area, and for other training drills.

•Zinc cream: Pragyan Ojha and Ramesh Powar are perhaps its biggest brand ambassadors. It takes a fair amount of time to apply the white layer on a cricketer’s face.

•I-pod: Last, but not least important. Players, for example Sachin Tendulkar, Harbhajan Singh, Yuvraj Singh and Sreesanth, use it to unwind before and after games.