Dhruv Jurel continued to make a strong case for a spot in the India playing XI for the upcoming Perth Test against Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy as he scored a second gritty fifty against Australia-A in the 2nd unofficial Test on November 9, Saturday. Jurel outshone many of his teammates during the match with his resilience and bailed out the India-A side in both innings.
Earlier in the match, Jurel would score 80 off 186 balls in the first innings to save his team after a top order cpllapse had left India-A reeling. A similar situation would unfold in the second innings as the visitors would suffer yet another collapse and find themselves at 56 for 5 with failures from the likes of KL Rahul and Ruturaj Gaikwad with the bat. After India-A ended the day with a 11-run lead, Jurel and Nitish Kumar Reddy would steady the ship.
Jurel got a boundary in the third over of the day and started to show off his range of shots against the Australia bowlers. He received good support from Nitish Kumar Reddy at the other end and the duo added 94 runs to the scorecard with their gritty partnership. Jurel got to his fifty in 86 balls and would continue to frustrate the hosts with his steady batting.
The 23-year-old ended up scoring 68 off 122 balls before Corey Rocchiccioli was able to dismiss him in the end as Sam Konstas took a good catch. India would then go on to lose Nitish shortly after, before a solid stand from Tanuish Kotian and Prasidh Krishna got the visitors past the 200-run mark and pushed the lead past 150.
India are taking a big squad for the BGT series and Jurel’s performances would have caught the eye of the selectors. After making his debut in the England series earlier in the year, Jurel didn’t play against Bangladesh and New Zealand and the Australia-A match was seen as way for him to get some gametime.
With India looking to make some big calls on the playing XI, Jurel has helped his own case with the strong performances in Melbourne.
India squad for Border-Gavaskar Trophy
Rohit Sharma (C), Jasprit Bumrah (VC), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (WK), Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel (WK), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar.
