There’s something about making tough runs. You are playing in foreign and challenging conditions, your team’s down in the dumps, you haven’t played a red-ball match in over a month, then you come and score a magnificent hundred. That’s exactly what Dhruv Jurel has done against Australia A.
Dhruv Jurel’s knack of performing under pressure
His team (India A) was 11-4 in 2.4 overs, and from there he went on to score an imperious 80 off 186 balls you’ll ever see. Had this been an international match, it could have gone down as one of the best knocks played by an Indian player overseas. The innings wasn’t a fluke by any means. Jurel wasn’t slashing at balls; he meticulously planned how he would rescue India A’s sinking ship. There was no madness, just method.
Jurel’s already shown he’s got a watertight technique and can bat time. This isn’t even the first time he’s shown his caliber. He’s already played such an innings in Test cricket. In just his second match, India were 161-5, still trailing by 192 runs. Soon enough, it was 177-7. Then, along with Kuldeep Yadav and Akash Deep, he managed to take India to 307.
Unfortunately, that day, he fell 10 short of hitting his maiden Test hundred, but the magnitude of that innings might have been more than some double hundreds. India sealed the series against England right then and there, all thanks to Jurel, who’d made his debut less than 10 days ago.
The same Jurel we saw in Ranchi returned to Melbourne. However, since this was outside India, this rescue job is even better. Unluckily, this time, he fell 20 short of scoring a ton. Everyone, including me, is guilty of landmark glory. But, as all of us know, some of the greatest knocks aren’t necessarily hundreds.
A great example is Rishabh Pant‘s 89* at the Gabba three years ago. It didn’t matter; he scored 11 runs less. What everyone, including Pant, cared about was winning. So, while not a triple-digit score, the weight of Jurel’s 80 at MCG is more than that of any regular Test hundred, much like his Ranchi 90.
Dhruv Jurel or Sarfaraz Khan for BGT?
Now that we’ve talked about why Jurel’s knock. Let’s shift our focus to India’s demands for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy (BGT). Although form remains a concern for many batters, the only position up for grabs is number six. Currently, Sarfaraz Khan occupies that spot. KL Rahul wasn’t far behind in the race for the position, but he was dropped by the management in the recent New Zealand series, and going back to him might not be what Gambhir Gambhir and Rohit Sharma might be thinking.
With an average of over 70 in first-class cricket, Sarfaraz hasn’t justified himself in Tests. After six matches, he’s got just 371 runs. Not going into his technique, his play against high-quality pace or spin, doesn’t inspire confidence. We saw that against New Zealand. He scored a duck in seamer-friendly condition on Day 2 of the Bengaluru Test, but when the pitch flattened out, he scored a great 150.
But, when spin became the force in Pune and Mumbai, he struggled once again, scoring just 20 runs in 4 innings. So then, the question is, do you trust him in Australia? We’ve now seen someone like Dhruv Jurel perform at every opportunity he’s got, both home and away. That’s something Sarfaraz hasn’t done in international cricket.
Now, it’s up to the Indian management. Do they want to pick Sarfaraz, who is ahead in the pecking order, has a flamboyant streak to him, and is a quick scorer, or go with Jurel based on his tough-as-nails batting style and ability to perform under pressure?
