New Delhi, Aug. 21: For the third day in a row, the Delhi Ranji team took part in the conditioning camp sans their stars at the Ferozeshah Kotla on Friday. While paceman Ashish Nehra resumed training after skipping it on Thursday, opener Gautam Gambhir is unlikely to attend the camp as he is down with a fever.

The India opener is expected to fly straight to Bengaluru on August 26 for the Team India camp starting in the National Cricket Academy. Apart from Gambhir, missing from the nets were players who are out of the city — including skipper Virender Sehwag, Ishant Sharma, Rajat Bhatia, Chetanya Nanda and Sunny Sehrawat.

Sehwag had earlier threatened to leave Delhi and join Haryana protesting against the functioning of the sports committee and he has the support of teammates like Gambhir, Ishant and Nehra.

Meanwhile, coach Vijay Dahiya said that he had sought an early start to the conditioning camp to create ‘bonding’ within the team. "One of the qualities of the Ranji Trophy-winning side was that we played as a team. I insisted on starting the camp early so that the team could bond quicker and start preparations for the next season in right earnest," Dahiya said in a chat with this newspaper.

However, with 6-7 players missing from the camp, the whole point of starting early seems to be getting diluted. "I have the nucleus of the team with me. When Sehwag, Ishant and Gambhir do join the camp, it’ll be an added bonus for me. The Delhi team is not only about these three individuals — it is the youngsters who need to put in their best to match the performance of these guys," he added.

The former India stumper said that it was not difficult to get the players to focus on cricketing matters with all the distractions around them off the field.

"All the players selected in the Delhi squad are professional cricketers. They have come up through the same system and are well aware of things going around them. But the youngsters are only focussed on their job and that is to win the Ranji Trophy once again," the 36-year-old said.

On the new turf laid out at Kotla, Dahiya said, "The track looks good and hard. It should have bounce which hopefully will help produce more result-oriented matches. But I have requested some friendly matches against teams like Railways and Services before the Ranji season gets underway to get a feel of things."

The coach might not seem perturbed about the missing players, but the camaraderie of old surely seems to be missing from the Delhi side at the moment.