![\"Dhruv](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Dhruv-Jurel--in-the-batting-form-of-his-life--will_1762967588626.jpg\" "\\"Dhruv")
Dhruv Jurel, in the batting form of his life, will remain in the playing eleven despite Rishabh Pant\u2019s return from injury. (PTI) <\/p>\nKolkata: The Indian team management provided a stamp of certainty to the playing eleven 48 hours ahead of the first Test against South Africa at the Eden Gardens. Dhruv Jurel, in the batting form of his life, will remain in the playing eleven despite Rishabh Pant\u2019s return from injury.<\/p>\n
Dhruv Jurel, in the batting form of his life, will remain in the playing eleven despite Rishabh Pant\u2019s return from injury. (PTI) <\/p>\n
Jurel, who scored his first Test century against West Indies in the Ahmedabad Test and hit unbeaten 132 and 127 for India A against South Africa A, was confirmed in the line-up on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
With Pant, who is set to take over keeping from Jurel, coming in, Nitish Reddy was released from the squad to join the A side for the one-dayers against South Africa A.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think you can leave him out for this Test, is the short answer,\u201d batting coach Ryan ten Doeschate told the media on Wednesday when asked about Jurel. \u201cBut you can only pick 11 as well. So, someone else will have to miss out. And given the way Dhruv\u2019s gone in the last six months, scoring two hundreds in Bengaluru last week, he\u2019s certain to play this week.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bigger focus though is on how far spin will impact the Test.<\/p>\n
As far as lasting impact goes, Mitchell Santner\u2019s name should figure somewhere at the top of India\u2019s list of nightmares in home Tests. Also, Ajaz Patel, Steve O\u2019Keefe, and of course Monty Panesar. All left-arm orthodox spinners, each with match-winning figures in the last 15 years, every success a stinging reminder of India\u2019s slowly dipping stocks against this particular type of bowling. South Africa come with similar hope, armed with left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj \u2014 on his second tour of India \u2014 who is leading possibly the most spin-heavy bowling attack ever.<\/p>\n
You would think India would be in a different mental space now that the Test team has been restructured after Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma retired. Nothing screams success like a drawn series in England under a rookie captain. And the preparation against left-arm spin has been pretty intensive too at the Eden. But India are not leaving anything to chance, making subtle changes that have not gone unnoticed by South Africa.<\/p>\n
First, the pitch. \u201cI think it will be good wickets that deteriorate as the game goes on,\u201d Maharaj said on Tuesday. \u201cIf you watched a bit of the West Indies series, it went to day four and five. The narrative is changing in terms of getting wickets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Making turners at home had become the norm under MS Dhoni. And even though England won 2-1 in 2012, India routed Australia 4-0 three months later. Kohli went down the same lane, but the thought process may be changing was evident in how lively the Ahmedabad pitch looked on Day 1 of the Windies Test. The Eden track isn\u2019t that green, but it also doesn\u2019t have that dry, bare look the Pune pitch had last year against New Zealand.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looks like a good wicket that should spin later. So yes, it\u2019s not just going to be about the spin,\u201d ten Doeschate said. \u201cImportantly, the batters are going to have to do really well in the first few days when batting should be slightly easier. Of course, both teams have quality sets of fast bowlers. So, I guess the challenge for both is the combination to go in with.\u201d<\/p>\n
India backed themselves to score heavily in the past because they had some of the best players of spin. As that ability waned, they were found out more often by visiting spinners. And since this gap can\u2019t be covered overnight, the only other thing India could have done was to modify the pitch. It comes with two distinct advantages \u2013 Japrit Bumrah stays interested for longer phases, and scoring won\u2019t be as difficult on the first three days.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are going to be relying a lot on our seamers to make early inroads in the first couple of days,\u201d said ten Doeschate. \u201cI guess that\u2019s what you want from a really good Test wicket where it\u2019s not just reliant on one of the facets being too important to the game. But I do think spin is going to be important on this pitch in the long run.\u201d<\/p>\n
Man for man, India still have a better spin attack even if Kuldeep Yadav doesn\u2019t play. But Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar assures them batting backup. \u201cWashi, Axar, Jaddu, for me, you\u2019ve actually got three batters there,\u201d said ten Doeschate. \u201cSo, it does give us a lot of flexibility. I would say we\u2019re quite lucky in the sense that we\u2019re getting to a point where some of those all-rounders could play as either a batter or a bowler.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ten Doeschate thinks South Africa will probably play three spinners, but an unfair division of workload can go against them. This strategy won them the tour of Bangladesh and helped level the series in Pakistan, but India are much better players of spin despite relative inexperience.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully we\u2019ve learned from the New Zealand series,\u201d ten Doeschate said. \u201cWe\u2019ve put some plans into place against how to play spin.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kolkata: The Indian team management provided a stamp of certainty to the playing eleven 48 hours ahead of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259479,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,71654,308,26484,16660,4247,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-259478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-dhruv-jurel","tag-india","tag-kolkata","tag-nitish-reddy","tag-south-africa","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}