Sai Sudharsan was a constant batting presence during the session breaks of the Eden Gardens Test. Axar Patel took his spot in the side and his Tamil Nadu teammate Washington Sundar batted in his top-order position, but there was no change in his approach towards being a big-volume batter on the sidelines. On all three days, he had batting coach Sitanshu Kotak chucking balls at him during the intervals.
Two days after India’s defeat, he brought the same energy to an optional nets session in Kolkata. A day out from travelling to Guwahati, where there has never been a Test match before, India’s middle-order options, barring the injured Shubman Gill and Rishabh Pant, spent a little over two hours in the nets. For almost the entirety of that, Sai Sudharsan was actively involved.
In the Kolkata game, Washington gave a solid audition for a long rope at No.3, as he seemed sound with his technique and displayed patience against spinners on a tricky surface. Sudharsan’s way back in, for the time being, hinges on Shubman Gill’s status. The India captain was discharged from the Kolkata hospital a day ago but was seen wearing a cervical collar. Whether he can take the field in four day’s time from now remains to be seen.
On Tuesday, Sudharsan and Washington began in adjacent nets and opposite ends. The off-spinner bowled for about 30 minutes to Ravindra Jadeja and Dhruv Jurel, replicating the effect of what they faced in the game from South Africa’s Simon Harmer. Sudharsan meanwhile took instructions from Kotak and got started at the fast bowling nets where Akash Deep was operating. During the sessions on the sidelines of the first Test, it seemed like Sudharsan focussed a lot on front foot play. He began in that fashion again, before mixing it up. Jurel soon joined Sudharsan to bat in tandem, while Jadeja travelled across the ground to take throwdowns.
Nearly an hour into India’s session, head coach Gautam Gambhir made his way to the two practice nets and settled for a view from behind the batters. He watched on as Sudharsan moved to the spin nets. For the next 25 minutes, Sudharsan batted with a pattern – he swept the off-spinners with giant forward strides and charged out against left-arm spinners bowling from round the stumps. He did the same when Jurel decided to bowl briefly at him.
Gambhir summoned Sudharsan mid-session for a chat from behind the stumps, where there was some gesticulation about his front foot play. The batter then went back to tackling spin.
Sudharsan is a well-known nets glutton – he walked out after more than an hour of batting, took off his right pad, but changed his mind. He quickly put the pad back on to return and continue sweeping the off-spinners for five more minutes. Once done, he walked across and headed to throwdowns nets, where he played sweep shots against the other angle – coming from the left-handed throwdown specialist Nuwan Senaviratne.
Jurel, meanwhile, went with his own version of focussed routine. He spoke with Kotak, then walked into one of the four nets with only his left pad on. Kotak fed balls from a shortened distance, and Jurel kept reverse-sweeping them. Then two net spinners – an offie and a left-arm option, took over from about three-quarters of the length of the net. He continued to reverse sweep them too, for a good 20 minutes. Over at the other spin nets, Washington had a long batting session, leaving plenty of deliveries and getting behind the line well, without nicking off. It’s a lot of what he did in the first Test, as he came away as one of the few batting positives for India.
India will touch down in Guwahati on Wednesday, and have two more training days before attempting to earn series parity. Guwahati is uncharted territory – as far as Test cricket is concerned, but given Simon Harmer’s impact in Kolkata, the home side is likely to immerse its batters in more spin-heavy work in the lead-up.
