Former Indian opener Abhinav Mukund has lauded the Indian middle-order batter Dhruv Jurel for scoring an excellent half-century and stitching an important partnership in the lower middle-order in the first Test against Sri Lanka, on Sunday, August 16.
Speaking to Cricinfo, Mukund has credited India A’s tour of Sri Lanka for Jurel and Devdutt Padikkal’s exceptional show in the ongoing Test series. For the unversed, Jurel and Padikkal were part of India A’s recent tour of Sri Lanka. While Padikkal scored 173 runs in three innings, Jurel amassed 208 runs in two matches on that tour.
“For players who are just trying to break it into the side, for someone like Dhruv Jurel, a shadow tour was extremely beneficial. Look at Devdutt Padikkal’s runs now, who also had a fabulous tour. So, these shadow tours are something that I’m very excited about. It’s an important part of development for a player,” Abhinav Mukund told Cricinfo.
“Even though India and Sri Lanka are not too far away, not different time zones, the ball is different. The way they play cricket is different. It’s an island where you’ve got breeze blowing certain parts of the day, you’ve got to adjust to the rain. I think it’s all an experience,” he added.
Delving into the details of the game, India, after opting to bat first, posted 460/9 in 116 overs at stumps on Day 2. KL Rahul (82), Devdutt Padikkal (167) and Dhruv Jurel (51) were the top scorers in the first innings. Furthermore, the former Indian opener emphasized that Jurel needs to score a lot of runs to retain his place in the XI.
“I really like the look of Dhruv Jurel and I’ve got a lot of time for him as a Test match batter. But he’s really got to understand what it means to be a pure batter. He’s not the wicket-keeper batter in this side. He needs to score big runs for him to retain his place in the side,” he concluded.
