India’s assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate all but confirmed on Wednesday that Dhruv Jurel will play in the first Test vs South Africa at the Eden Gardens, set to start on Friday. With first choice wicket-keeper Rishabh Pant coming back into the side after suffering an injury in England earlier this year which forced him to miss the West Indies Tests, there were questions around Jurel’s place in the XI, especially give the form he is in. But Ten Doeschate revealed that the home team will find a way to slot both Pant and Jurel in the same team, with the latter likely to play as a pure batter.
“I don’t think you can leave him out of this Test,” Ten Doeschate said. “That’s the short answer and obviously you can pick 11 as well so someone else has to miss out. I think we have got a pretty good idea of the combination. And given the way Dhruv has gone in the last 6 months, even scoring two hundreds in Bangalore last week, he is certain to play this week. Again, what I mentioned about Washy, Jaddu and Axar, for me you have got three batters there so it gives us some flexibility. I’ll be very surprised if I don’t see Dhruv and Jurel not playing in this Test.
Jurel has been in scintillating form with the bat in Pant’s absence. The wicket-keeper batter notched up two centuries in the recently concluded second unofficial Test match between India A and South Africa A. His last few innings for India A reads 69, 80 and 68, 94 and 53*, 52 and 28, 140, 1 and 56 and 132* and 127* which makes it hard to keep the 24-year-old out of the reckoning. In the West Indies series last month, he deputized perfectly for Pant, scoring 125 in the first Test and chipping in with 44 in the second one.
In order to put Jurel in the mix, Ten Doeschate alluded that someone has to make way. Jurel might slot in directly for Nitish Kumar Reddy who the Indian assistant coach said is almost certain to miss out on the Kolkata Test.
“I also said strategy comes first. The primary thing is to set up our strategy to win the game and then if you can accommodate giving guys a chance for development, that comes in. Our position certainly hasn’t changed for Nitish. He didn’t get much game time in Australia. I would say given the importance of the series, given the conditions we think we are gonna face, you know he might miss out on the Test this week,” ten Doeschate said.
Reddy, who has been used sparingly by India in home conditions with the Andhra all-rounder playing a bit-part role in the recent West Indies series where he batted once in the second Test, contributing 43 and bowled just 4 overs across 2 matches.
There is also a possibility that Jurel could also slot in the lineup in place of B Sai Sudharsan, who has failed to make the No.3 position his own since debuting in the England series earlier this year. In 9 innings, he has scored 273 runs at an average of 30.33 with the highest score being 87. With coach Gautam Gambhir’s penchant for tweaking the batting order, Jurel might get promoted to the No.3 spot or an all-rounder like Washington Sundar or Axar Patel might take it with Jurel batting further down the order.
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In the series against West Indies India had picked Nitish as an all-rounder at No 6. Despite having Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar as all-rounders, Nitish was given game time as India wanted him to get used to the role. Skipper Shubman Gill said even stated that it would be unfair to expect Nitish to perform only in SENA countries.
With the pitches for the South Africa series unlikely to have any assistance to seamers, India believe going in with a specialist batsman would give them more cushion against an opposition that has a strong, all-round attack.
India playing two specialist wicketkeepers with one as specialist batsman is new. While there have been the odd occasions because of injuries, this is a rare instance of India are playing a wicketkeeper as a specialist batsman he offers runs. During 2007 tour of England, India used Dinesh Karthik as an opener when MS Dhoni donned the gloves.
