Selectors and coaches often place great emphasis on the eye test. Sai Sudharsan had clearly passed this when India called him up to their Test squad. Sai Sudharsan averaged less than 40 in first-class cricket, and the last frontline batter to make a Test debut for India without having passed that benchmark was another Tamil Nadu left-hander, WV Raman, all the way back in 1988. And Raman’s first-class average was partly a function of his having begun his career as a left-arm spinner who batted down the order.
At the end of that England tour, the enigma of Sai Sudharsan confronted the world all over again: eye test passed, average of 23.33. Sai Sudharsan had, of course, only played three Tests, so you couldn’t read too much into that average. But then came Ahmedabad last week, and a score of 7 when the rest of India’s top six made 36, 100, 50, 125 and 104*.
One of those scores came from a promising wicketkeeper-batter who was playing because India’s regular keeper-batter was injured; many viewers began having visions of both playing together, one of them as a specialist batter.And how would India possibly accommodate both in their XI? Well, there’s this guy Sai Sudharsan at No. 3 with an average of 21.00 after four Test matches.
Times changed for Sai Sudharsan enroute his 87 runs at New Delhi
It was against this backdrop that Sai Sudharsan batted against West Indies in Delhi. On the one hand: day one on a flat Indian pitch, a modest attack, and so much to gain. On the other: refer to last week’s scorecard for evidence of how little all those ingredients can still amount to.
As Sai Sudharsan settled into his innings, he showed no sign of being in any way conscious of this backdrop. He had faced a certain degree of criticism in Ahmedabad for his tendency of playing most lengths from spinners off the back foot, and had been out doing so, lbw while looking to pull Roston Chase off a ball that didn’t seem short enough to merit that response. He continued, here in Delhi, to play most lengths off the back foot against West Indies’ spin trio, but showed he had ways of forcing them for runs without adopting the horizontal bat.
By the time he had scored 26, he had hit four back-foot fours off the spinners with a straight or straight-ish bat, three of them down the ground. Two of them were contenders for shot of the day: both times, he rocked back to Jomel Warrican’s left-arm spin and punched him against the turn into the narrow gap between mid-off and short extra-cover.
Both times, the ball was only marginally short of a good length, and turning into his stumps and theoretically cramping Sai Sudharsan for room. But he manufactured just enough room by using the full depth of his crease and opening up his hip, with his front leg skipping nimbly to the leg side, and manufactured a remarkable amount of power through his strong, whippy wrists.
Sai Sudharsan showed complete faith in this back-foot-dominant game against spin right through a second-wicket stand of 193 with Yashasvi Jaiswal, whether while playing attacking shots or while defending good-length balls attacking his stumps.
Every now and again, this technique contributed to moments that jolted viewers out of the reverie that big first-day partnerships on flat Indian pitches can induce. One ball would turn a little more, or skid through a little quicker, or keep ever so slightly low, and yank Sai Sudharsan out of his bubble of self-possession. On 52, he jammed his bat down just in time to save himself from what looked like a certain lbw against one such ball from Khary Pierre.
But this was still a batter in full control. Almost literally. Until he was dropped on 58 – he closed his bat face too early against the medium-pace of Justin Greaves and popped a leading edge towards Warrican at short midwicket – off the 107th ball he faced, Sai Sudharsan hadn’t played a single false shot all innings.
And his eventual dismissal on 87 came off the only false shot he played in 125 balls against spin. Inevitably, it was a good-length ball that Sai Sudharsan looked to defend off the back foot, except this ball from Warrican turned prodigiously and skidded onto his back pad before he could bring his bat down fully. Like the rest of his innings had done, like his dismissal in Ahmedabad had done, it fuelled debate over his method as Former Indian opener now commentator Aakash Chopra termed it as an error of judgement.
B Sai Sudharsan is a work in progress- Aakash Chopra
Former India player Aakash Chopra has attributed Sai Sudharsan’s dismissal in the second Test against the West Indies to an error of judgment or planning.
He noted that the youngster would have negotiated that ball very easily in limited-overs cricket. Sai Sudharsan scored 87 runs off 165 balls as India posted 318/2 in their first innings on Day 1 (Friday, October 10) of the second Test in Delhi. The left-handed batter was trapped leg-before-wicket by a sharp turning delivery from Jomel Warrican.
Ball-by-ball data from Test matches in India since 2022 tells us that, on average, batters only negotiate around 14% of balls that spinners land in the 4-5m length band (the fuller side of the spinners’ good length) off the back foot. Sai Sudharsan, in this series, has gone back to just under 38% of balls pitching in that band. Is that… good or bad?
Well, first of all, our reactions to technique tend to be informed by what we’re used to seeing. We’re used to watching batters defend balls off the front foot when spinners land on the fuller side of a good length. Any other response looks unusual, and to many viewers, suspect. And if you believe this, that belief is only strengthened when that unusual method contributes to a dismissal.
Sai Sudharsan was out playing back to a ball most batters would have gone forward to. But he had employed the same technique until that point while achieving a 100% control rate over 124 balls against spin.
During a discussion on Star Sports, Aakash Chopra opined that Sai Sudharsan’s lack of experience in red-ball cricket contributed to his dismissal.
“He doesn’t have sizeable performances in first-class cricket. So he is still a work in progress. He will keep learning. If you look at it from his point of view, when you score 700 runs quickly in the IPL, and when you play Test cricket, you realize that it’s a very difficult job. It’s a very different job. His selection in Tests is an inspired selection. It is not just because of the weight of runs,” the former India opener said.
“You are playing him because you feel he has the ability. I am sure that he will also realize that Test cricket is not that easy, even though the challenge in front of him wasn’t that big. It was the first-day pitch, but the ball hit the pads because it was your error of judgment or error of planning. You negotiate that ball very easily in white-ball cricket,” he added.
Aakash Chopra highlighted that a left-hander needs to commit to the front foot in Test cricket. He reasoned that southpaws have to face a little more rough in the longest format and are tested slightly more.Sai Sudharsan struck 12 fours during his 87-run knock. He was dropped on 58 by Jomel Warrican off Justin Greaves’ bowling, but the left-arm spinner made up for it by eventually dismissing the southpaw.
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