NEW DELHI: A few minutes after India started their matchday minus two training session at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Wednesday, B Sai Sudharsan voluntarily started a game of football. Soon enough, his statemate, N Jagadeesan, joined in. This group had swelled to four after Prasidh Krishna and Mohammed Siraj couldn't resist the opportunity to leather the ball on a few occasions.
All of them exhibited some good touches, Jagadeesan floated a few crosses in from a very dodgy looking part of the outfield, understandable as the city has taken in a fair amount of rain over the last few nights (more rain is forecast during the second Test but nothing match threatening). Once that impromptu football session finished, Adrian le Roux, the team's strength and conditioning guru, supervised a drill centred around fielding and throwing down a single stump from 10 metres away.
Sudharsan had a lot of success as he repeatedly knocked down the stump, mostly on the bounce. He was all smiles as he had a productive drill.
He will be looking forward to bottling that particular emotion over the course of the second Test against West Indies from Friday. Post that first Test in Ahmedabad last week, skipper Shubman Gill had called it a perfect match. Perfect, however, wouldn't be applicable for the southpaw, who's still waiting for a breakout Test innings, since making his debut in England earlier this year. He showed some flashes of his talent in England but overall, the beginning to his Test career has been an hmmm. An hmmm which added a few more mmm's after his very tentative seven in the first game before he was caught in front by Roston Chase.
He's expected to start the second Test — he's highly rated by the management and they have picked him keeping in mind his temperament and potential — but in the cut throat of Indian cricket, time doesn't wait for anybody. The Tamil Nadu batter even had a reminder when he was batting at the nets later in the session. When he was facing an array of throwdowns from India's support staff, Devdutt Padikkal, a readymade replacement in the squad, was facing upto Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav (Sudharsan was asked by Padikkal whether he had a preference and the former replied saying he wasn't too fussed who he was going to face in the nets).
One thing which works in his favour is he knows the team has given vocal and public backing. Ajit Agarkar, the chairman of the men's selection committee, after picking the squad for the two-match Test series, had said: "As far is going concerned, Sai has shown a lot of promise. We know he's a very good player. Hopefully, we can give him a longish run from now on, at a particular number. Hopefully going forward, we can give these guys time to actually build their careers."
Build their careers is a big phrase because it means his employers see him as one for the future, over somebody like a Karun Nair, who had come back into the team thanks to his sheet weight of runs in domestic cricket. But Nair, according to the management, didn't take his chances in the England series. Agarkar was rather intimate when he spoke about Nair, 10 years Sudharsan's senior. "We expected more from Nair in England," the Mumbaikar had said.
From that perspective, one can clearly see why the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) wants to invest resources in the 23-year-old. He has the right technique for the longer format and is seen as an all-weather performer, at least in red-ball cricket. Assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate spoke on similar lines in a press conference after the training session on Wednesday. "We've obviously got a lot of belief in him to give that number three spot," he said. "He's playing pretty nicely, probably a tactical mistake the other day, which he'll be aware of playing back to a one early in the innings. We just want him to know that we know he's good enough."
It's now time to start repaying this very public display of faith because the challengers are knocking on the door. Sudharsan has the ability to do it, the question is will he be able to do it on demand?
