India's assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate has all but confirmed that Indian Dhruv Jurel will feature in the XI for the opening Test against South Africa at Eden Gardens starting on Friday despite Rishabh Pant's return to the side. Pant, who had missed part of the England tour and the subsequent series against West Indies at home due to injury, is set to make his comeback to the side.
Meanwhile, Dhruv Jurel has been in top-notch form in the red-ball format, having performed promisingly in first-class cricket. Jurel also showed his batting prowess during the West Indies series, scoring his maiden Test hundred in the first Test in Ahmedabad. He had come into the squad in place of Rishabh Pant.
“I don’t think you can leave him out of this Test. That’s the short answer, and obviously you can pick 11 as well so someone else will have to miss out. I think we have got a pretty good idea of the combination. And given the way Dhruv has gone in the last 6 months, even scoring two hundreds in Bangalore last week, he is certain to play this week. Again, what I mentioned about Washy, Axar, and Jaddu for me, you have got three batters there so it gives us some flexibility. But I’ll be very surprised if I don’t see Dhruv and Jurel not playing in this Test," Ten Doeschate said during the press conference.
South Africa head into the series against India on the back of a 1-1 Test result in Pakistan, where their spinners played a key role in rattling Pakistan batters. The likes of Keshav Maharaj, Simon Harmer and Senuran Muthusamy took 33 wickets between them to help South Africa challenge Pakistan.
"They have got four spinners at their disposal. Most likely they'll play three, and it's a little bit like playing against a subcontinent team. You normally worry about the pace attack first. And I'm pretty sure they'll go with two seamers and three spinners."
"But that is also the challenge when you're playing in the subcontinent. It's something as a team that we need to get better (at). We addressed it early on. We've come up short a few times, so it's a great challenge. Hopefully we've learned from the New Zealand series. We've put some plans into place how to play the spin. And you're right, it's going to be so important over these two games, particularly how well they did in Pakistan about four weeks ago."