KL Rahul, Dhruv Jurel join India A squad in Australia for practice game
KL Rahul and Dhruv Jurel will be part of India A's final unofficial red-ball match against Australia A in Melbourne later this week.
India batters KL Rahul and Dhruv Jurel have been officially added to the India A squad for the second unofficial four-day first-class match against Australia A, which will begin on Thursday in Melbourne. Contrary to the main Indian Test squad, two players - Rahul and Jurel - left for Australia early to join the India A squad in a bid to get some match practice ahead of the start of the Border-Gavaskar series on November 22 in Perth.
Rahul has so far played just three Test matches since September, albeit with no much luck. He scored 118 runs in five with just a solitary fifty and one dismissal for duck, across two series. He was eventually dropped for the second and third match against New Zealand at home. Jurel, on the other hand, did not get game time in the traditional format since his debut series for India against England earlier this year. His only involvement in the New Zealand series was in the opening Test when regular wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant had incurred a knee injury and hence the youngster substituted him with the gloves in Bengaluru.
"The Men’s Selection Committee have added Mr KL Rahul and Mr Dhruv Jurel to the India A squad for the second first-class game against Australia A starting on Thursday at the MCG, Melbourne. Earlier, Mr Prasidh Krishna was added to the squad as a replacement for Yash Dayal, who was named in India’s T20I squad for the tour of South Africa," read the BCCI release.
According to a report in The Indian Express, the team management and selectors decided to send Rahul and Jurel early to Australia because they did not have enough game time. Moreover, the BCCI cancelled India's only scheduled practice game, against India A, ahead of the Border-Gavaskar series opener in Perth. India will instead have a centre-wicket match simulation, as per the report.
Rohit Sharma justifies BCCI's move
Rohit, speaking to the media in Mumbai after India's humiliating 0-3 defeat on home soil, reckoned that BCCIs' move to have a centre-wicket match simulation will help the players prepare better than facing any of the opposition cricketers.
“We are travelling with a squad of 19 players and only three days were allotted to us. I don’t know how much workload we can get in those three days in terms of getting everyone prepared. The management feels that we’d rather have a match simulation where batters can spend more time in the middle and the bowlers can bowl a lot of balls. That is something that we as a team feel more comfortable doing rather than playing a practice game because game time is not a problem,” Sharma said.
The Indian team will leave for Australia on November 10 and will train at the WACA, the old Test venue in Perth, ahead of the series opener, where the World Test Championship final qualification will be on the line. India, who dropped to the second spot in the points table after incurring their first-ever whitewash on home soil in a Test series, will have to avoid any defeat or more than one draw against Australia to make the WTC final.
