Rishabh Pants meets with a life-threatening accident, ruling him out for a significant period. Ishan Kishan manages to find himself out of favour with the Board of Control for Cricket in India.
KS Bharat was given the keeping responsibilities for the first two Tests, and he wasn’t bad behind the stumps, but hardly promising in front of it.
India had no choice but to insert Dhruv Jurel in for the third Test. The 23-year-old from Agra looked at ease. But, after how he handled himself in the fourth Test in Ranchi, it would be hard to say he didn’t belong there in the first place.
Besides being an easy-on-the-eye as a ‘keeper’, Jurel has shown why the management considered his services this early in his career. His 46 in Rajkot wasn’t a thing of beauty but his 149-ball 90 was pure class and composure, the kind you would expect from someone with far more experience.
And then came the unbeaten 39 from 77 balls when India were down and out in pursuit of a dangerous 192 on a cracking fourth-day pitch.
See, Jurel has played only a handful of first-class games, and while his numbers are good, they aren’t the kind that you would normally associate with a fast-tracking process into the Indian Test team.
But, India were desperate, and Railways’ Upendra Yadav’s numbers had begun to dovetail after a good first-class career. Jurel came from obscurity and became the backup option should all the others ahead of him in the hierarchy come up short.