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.
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.
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 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?
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.