Former Indian spinner Pragyan Ojha wants the selectors and team management to back Sai Sudharsan despite his mixed performance in the recently concluded five-match Test series against England. Sudharsan was surprisingly dropped after returning with scores of 0 and 30 in his debut Test at Leeds, Headingley.
The left-hander scored a fighting knock of 61 runs in the first innings of the fourth Test match at Old Trafford, Headingley. The southpaw scored a crucial knock of 38 runs in the first innings on a difficult Oval pitch.
Sudharsan scored 140 runs in three Test matches at an average of 23.33 against England.
Pragyan Ojha said on JioHotstar, “Who’s the batter that you would want at number three? The one who is mentally strong and is skilful. He showed us both those traits, and he could play that way, he could spend a lot of time at the crease, and he could take the shine off the ball. But he couldn’t score the runs and needs to work on that aspect. He’s young, he needs to work on converting his start into something bigger and also focus a bit more on his catching.”
“But I feel he is one player on whom you need to show some confidence, he has shown a bit of a spark, a bit of temperament, and you would want give some cushion to a number three player because in SENA countries, just like how the openers find life difficult, the number three batter also finds life tough”.
On the other hand, the former left-arm orthodox spinner said Yashasvi Jaiswal would have been relieved after scoring 118 runs in the second innings at the Oval. The southpaw scored a total of 411 runs in five Test matches against England.
“He would be relieved (with the hundred in the last Test) because he began the tour with a hundred and ended the series with a hundred. But in the matches in between, he could have contributed more. When we talk about Jaiswal, when England came to India, how he batted in that series. The way he batted in Australia. I feel that keeping that in mind, he might be disappointed with his performances because everyone who has followed his career and rates his game, I feel he could have scored another hundred in the series, which he missed out on,” Ojha said.
India was able to come up with a collective batting performance on the England tour and there were a lot of positives for the team.
