New Delhi, Oct 8 (IANS) India’s team management remains optimistic about B. Sai Sudharsan performing to his high potential very soon, said assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate ahead of the second Test against the West Indies, starting at the Arun Jaitley Stadium here on Friday.

The upcoming game could prove pivotal for the Chennai-based left-handed batter, whose early Test career has yet to yield consistent returns – seven games and 147 runs, including just one fifty. Sudharsan’s dismissal in Ahmedabad – trapped lbw for just seven on a straight delivery from Roston Chase – was a missed opportunity for him on a benign surface against a modest West Indies attack.

“It’s probably a little bit early to be sort of worried or panicked. It doesn’t help that you have five test matches in the UK, and then you wait six weeks to play the next Test to stay connected after this test next week. We don’t have a Test match for another three and a half weeks, so there’s no sort of string of fixtures to get your rhythm and to get yourself going.”

“But again, that is the nature of Test cricket in this era, and he has to find a way to do it. But I’m sure he does feel like he’s got our backing – like he’s got the captain’s backing, of us, and we feel a little bit of that at this moment, it’s very, very soon,” said ten Doeschate in the pre-game press conference on Wednesday.

Sudharsan, soon to turn 24, faces mounting pressure to justify his place at number three, considering the stakes are forever high in Indian cricket’s unforgiving selection landscape, as seen from cases of Sarfaraz Khan and Karun Nair.

Add to it, people like Abhimanyu Easwaran and Rajat Patidar are in reckoning too. Closer in the Indian team, Dhruv Jurel, Devdutt Padikkal, and even Washington Sundar shape up as potential number three batters in the Test set-up.

“He’s under no illusion about the fact that you’ve got more spots to fight for in this environment. You saw Karun Nair get four Test matches in England. There are a lot of good players sort of fighting at the heels of whoever has possession of that spot. So Sai needs to focus on believing in himself.”

“We want to see a lot of belief in him to give that number three spot. He’s playing pretty nicely, probably a tactical mistake which you’ll be aware of when you’re playing back-to-back so early in the innings. We just wanted to go in there and just back him. We know he’s good enough, and now he has to find a way of scoring rather than showing the rest of the country and team that he’s good enough to hold that spot.”

“But certainly no panic or no worry, particularly in a winning team, and you can absorb that in a series like this, it’s nice. We know he’s going to get four (innings), obviously only one off in the first Test. He’s only going to get two Test matches to put his innings together,” added ten Doeschate.

With Rishabh Pant set to return for the series against South Africa next month and Jurel impressing both with the bat and behind the stumps, Sudharsan faces added pressure. If Jurel is pushed up the order to retain his spot, would a strong showing in New Delhi help Sudharsan stay in contention?

“I’d imagine it does. Dhruv has shown last week just what a good player he is. You don’t know how long someone’s going to fit into the middle there. In addition to that, there are other good players who are fighting for the top three or four spots – Shubman has nailed number four, so Sai is aware of that.”

“Look, I don’t think you can have a career playing cricket in India if you don’t expect that sort of competition and have people and media throwing at you. That’s part of the profession, and the guys are tough enough to deal with that. Like I say, it’s coming up and he will get all the runs he needs to be able to play a good game,” added ten Doeschate.

In India’s practice session, Sai didn’t show many signs of being under the pump – happily indulging in a bit of warm-up football before going through the slip catching, short leg catching practice, and fitness motions.

“Jaiswal is a very good slip catcher. It wasn’t that long ago that he had those wobbles in England, but that happens for a young guy to come back from that, and it’s probably more important. KL’s got one of those positions covered.”

“But you know, Sai’s a good catcher as well. Devdutt takes great catches as well. So we want to get to a point where we’ve got five or six catchers. We’ve got some really nice catchers last week – Nitish and Yashasvi catches – which are very promising signs for the team,” added ten Doeschate.

When batting practice came, Sudharsan asked for throwdowns against the semi-new ball, which was an indication that he wanted to iron out the flaws in his batting and tentative footwork, and something he did diligently.

Ten Doeschate was also in glowing praise of Jurel, who got his maiden Test hundred in Ahmedabad and did a tidy job behind the stumps. At practice, Jurel was fine in his keeping drills and batted for a fair bit against the spinners, with dancing down the pitch shots being finetuned the most.

“We’re really happy with the way he’s tracking. Again, even in England, even a little bit in Australia, we’re trying to squeeze him into the matches because we know how good he is. Obviously, with Rishabh now being injured, it’s actually worked out quite nicely for him to get through some game time. He gets a chance to show his skills as a wicket keeper as well.”

“I guess just to directly (answer) your question about his developments, sort of what we saw in the back end of last year leading into this year, we were really hoping to kick on the IPL, and he didn’t make it in quite the IPL that he would have hoped for, and in terms of tracking him.”

“But I think to come into the team like he has and to score a proper hundred like that, I hope it gives him a bit of runway and to look at it in a positive way. It’s good that he’s putting pressure on other players and the top-order as well. All went very, very handily for him in that week,” he concluded.

–IANS

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