The ball flew in the nets at Perth. There were four of them made available for training and even the one where R Ashwin was bowling his offspin gave a fair bit of kick. India’s XI for the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, which begins here on Friday, might be made up of those capable of providing pace and bounce with the ball and combating it with the bat. In such conditions, KL Rahul is set to return to the top of the order, Devdutt Padikkal is likely to be the No. 3, while Dhruv Jurel is a near certainty at No. 6.
Here’s how India’s XI is shaping up for the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
Filling the vacant opener’s position shouldn’t be too much of a problem. For one, India knew Rohit might not make it and in Rahul, they have someone who has done the job before. Rahul kept himself pretty busy in the nets on Tuesday, focusing on his defence and yelling out loud when what he was trying to do occasionally wouldn’t come off.
Gill’s injury, while fielding, was both unexpected and last minute. India had to adapt to it on the fly and they did so by asking Padikkal, who was in Australia with their A team, to stay behind. Padikkal batted with the first group on Tuesday morning. His height and his reach can present a problem to bowling attacks, with good length balls suddenly becoming drivable but that is in batting friendly conditions, which these are not.
Like most of India’s batters in the three-hour session on Tuesday, he was a bit up and down, ending his session with a rasping cut shot against the spinners, his back and across movement so quick and fluid, but against the quicks he was largely reserved and his edges took a fair bit of damage. Padikkal did well against Australia A in Mackay, facing 276 balls across two innings at No. 4 and scoring 124 runs. He was down at No. 5 in the next unofficial Test on a very spicy MCG pitch but that didn’t go quite so well.
India have another top order batter in their squad and he has scored loads of runs in domestic cricket but he has been unable to shake an initial expression of looking a little uncomfortable against the extra pace and bounce on offer on these pitches. Abhimanyu Easwaran only got his chance to bat in the nets alongside the bowlers. It is unlikely that he will be part of the Test match in two days time.
Jurel favourite for No. 6
Virat Kohli and Rishabh Pant are locked at No. 4 and 5 which leaves one more spot up for grabs in the middle order.
The loudest sounds – laughter first and then some geeing up – of the day came when a slip catch coming fast and hard at Sarfaraz Khan went through his fingers. The second loudest was the sound of Jurel’s bat coming down to meet the ball. These are the two players contending for the No. 6 spot and their day couldn’t have been more different.
Sarfaraz was in the periphery. He actually only ended up at slip when Rahul left it to practice close catching to the spinner along with Yashasvi Jaiswal. Jurel’s day began here as well, at third slip. Then the team moved out of the main ground into the nets and that’s where Jurel really stood out. He rose up on tiptoe and kept rising balls down like a pro, soft hands, bat face pointed down, the ball dropping dead in front of him. He played a gorgeous flick shot to a quick ball at the other end of the length spectrum too. His decision making and the time he had to get right behind the ball in Perth along with his performance in Melbourne – twin fifties in seaming conditions – earlier this month could very well have launched him into the XI on Friday.
India’s bowling coach Morne Morkel spent most of his time looking after Nitish Kumar Reddy, whether it was standing where the umpire would be or walking back with Reddy to the top of his mark. He has the run up of an out and out fast bowler just not the pace. His work was geared towards making up for that as he tried to hold a line outside off stump and pin the batter to the crease.
India seem to be looking to Reddy to lengthen their batting to No. 8 and give them a bowling option suited to these conditions – the role Shardul Thakur used to play on recent overseas tours. If Reddy could get through 6-10 overs a day without leaking too many runs, the frontline quicks could be rotated more efficiently.
The spin bowling spot will probably go in Ashwin’s favour, given three of Australia’s key batters – Usman Khawaja, Travis Head and Alex Carey – are left-handers. Ravindra Jadeja didn’t bowl in the nets at Optus Stadium but he did get through a fairly long batting session.
Who will partner Jasprit Bumrah?
There is a bit of momentum gaining behind Harshit Rana after his work in match simulation settings at the WACA. He spent much of that bowling into the wicket and trying to catch his people on the hop. He is 22. He is strong. He doesn’t have a lot of first-class experience behind him. But he’s been impressing the right people and that can often be more important than simple stats. Rana didn’t bowl too much at the nets on Tuesday.
It is unclear who might make way for him because Mohammed Siraj was one of India’s best performers on their last tour of Australia and Akash Deep is yet to put in a performance that has fallen flat. He also had a long shift in the Perth nets going after India’s frontline batters. Same with Prasidh Krishna, and at least on one occasion he knew he had his man. “I heard a noise,” he said gleefully as he exchanged notes with his net bowling partners. In between running in and letting the ball fly, Prasidh had a quick one-on-one with Virat Kohli whose gestures indicated how difficult it might be for a batter to cope with back of a length balls – not outright short ones – when they happen to kick up off the pitch.
The Optus Stadium surface has the same clay as the WACA’s. It is going to offer pace and bounce though it would need to bake in the heat of the sun first and that was in short supply on Tuesday with rain forcing Australia’s practice session to be cancelled. India are trying to gear their XI to suit those conditions, and they have had to look past the inexperience of some of their players – Jurel, Reddy, Rana, Prasidh and Padikkal have played only seven Tests between them – and into their potential to make that happen.
