It’s that time of the year when winter is creeping up on North India in stops and starts — chilly one day, temperate the next — making it hard to determine how many woollens one should wear before stepping out.

On Sunday afternoon, some of the onlookers had over-budgeted while others had been foolhardy. A confluence of sweaty tweed jackets, jumpers tied around waists, and shivering striped t-shirts greeted the Indian team during their first practice session ahead of the second Test against Sri Lanka starting on Tuesday.

But Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s boys got only moderate attention from the hundreds who had gathered at the ground — rather peacefully, as if toning down their usual boisterous obsession to match the pace of cricket’s five-day format. Not too many eyes were trained at the squad practicing in the nets in one corner, and even less at Sachin Tendulkar, getting endless throw-downs from coach Gary Kirsten, in another.

Ruling the roost on the day, partly because of the last match in Ahmedabad and partly because of recent history, was the dual-coloured 22-yard strip in the middle of the once-glorious Green Park Stadium.

Everyone in the vicinity of the pitch had either an opinion on its nature, or an anecdote about it from the years gone by. There were reminders of how the wicket for this Test hadn’t been used for an international match in decades, and how it was the one on which Malcolm Marshall had made Sunil Gavaskar drop his bat with a bouncer in 1983.

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