When Sai Sudharsan missed a straight one off Roston Chase to get out leg-before in Ahmedabad, there was anguish writ large on his face. The Tamil Nadu left-hander, on an easy pitch against a below-par West Indies attack, missed a golden chance to seal the No. 3 slot for the foreseeable future in Tests.
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Had the failure been a one-off, there was absolutely no reason to worry. But that hasn’t exactly been the case for Sai, who has only one half-century to show in the seven Test innings that he has got so far. There’s no doubting his ability, but let’s not forget that this is the cutthroat world of
Indian cricket. An average of 21 over four Tests isn’t exactly assuring. The 23-year-old would know that the runs need to flow from his bat in the second Test at the Kotla starting on Friday.
Many contenders
Let’s go back a year to understand what it is to fail in two Tests for India. Sarfaraz Khan had just got a century on a difficult second-innings pitch in Bengaluru and all it needed was failures in the next two Tests, in which every Indian batter struggled, for the door to be slammed shut on the Mumbai boy.
If that’s not enough, take the case of Karun Nair. The Karnataka 34-year-old scored a half-century on a difficult Oval pitch that played a significant, albeit forgotten, part in India’s famous series-equalling win in England a couple of months ago.
But chairman of selectors Ajit Agarkar made it clear after the selection committee meeting for the West Indies series that they “expected a bit more” from Nair, though an average of 25.62 in England was a touch higher than Sai’s.
These two instances tell us that there’s not much leg-room for failure in the highest echelons of Indian cricket. If we look at the Sai situation, why is Kotla so important for the left-hander?
Dhruv Jurel, who is filling in for Rishabh Pant as the wicketkeeper, is a fine batter and has already got a century in the first Test.
Now, Pant will be back in action for the South Africa series and if Sai doesn’t get runs in the New Delhi Test, the team management will have to explore theoretical reasons to play the southpaw ahead of Jurel in the first Test at Eden Gardens on Nov 14.
Punting on potential
Despite the fact that the big runs haven’t come for Sai till now on the international stage, it’s not that he has looked like a fish out of water. A sincere student of the game and a fitness freak, Sai’s understanding of the off-stump, ability to play close to his body and score quickly when required — there are quite a few positives.
Former India opener and selector Devang Gandhi, whose Test career ended after one failure in Adelaide against Australia in 1999, feels the team management should be patient with Sai. “No. 3 is a difficult slot and look at the shoes that he is trying to fill (
Rahul Dravid and Cheteshwar Pujara). It’s not easy and from what I have seen of him, Sai looks very assured at the crease. There is probably a bit of an issue with his head position while playing the ball, but that can be easily worked on,” Gandhi told TOI.
He felt it is important to back talent and gave the example of
Shubman Gill, insisting that the right-hander wasn’t exactly a runaway success in red-ball cricket. “Even in Australia, he wasn’t exactly scoring truckloads of runs, but the selectors backed him and see where he is now. If they feel Sai is the right fit at No. 3, he should be given a long rope,” Gandhi said.
But then, there are players with much higher first-class averages than 39.40 and it’s on Sai to ensure that there’s no tsunami of speculation over the No. 3 slot ahead of the South Africa series.
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