New Delhi: India’s team management remains optimistic about B. Sai Sudharsan performing to his high potential very soon, said assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate ahead of the second Test against the West Indies at the Arun Jaitley Stadium here.
The upcoming game could prove pivotal for the Chennai-based left-handed batter, whose early Test career has yet to yield consistent returns – seven games and 147 runs, including just one fifty. Sudharsan’s dismissal in Ahmedabad – trapped lbw for just seven on a straight delivery from Roston Chase - was a missed opportunity for him on a benign surface against a modest West Indies attack.
“It's probably a little bit early to be sort of worried or panicked. It doesn't help that you have five test matches in the UK, and then you wait six weeks to play the next Test to stay connected after this test next week. We don't have a Test match for another three and a half weeks, so there's no sort of string of fixtures to get your rhythm and to get yourself going.”
“But again, that is the nature of Test cricket in this era, and he has to find a way to do it. But I'm sure he does feel like he's got our backing - like he's got the captain's backing, of us, and we feel a little bit of that at this moment, it's very, very soon,” said ten Doeschate in the pre-game press conference on Wednesday.
Sudharsan, soon to turn 24, faces mounting pressure to justify his place at number three, considering the stakes are forever high in Indian cricket’s unforgiving selection landscape, as seen from cases of Sarfaraz Khan and Karun Nair.
Add to it, people like Abhimanyu Easwaran and Rajat Patidar are in reckoning too. Closer in the Indian team, Dhruv Jurel, Devdutt Padikkal, and even Washington Sundar shape up as potential number three batters in the Test set-up.
