India A vs Australia A: Contrasting outings for KL Rahul and Dhruv Jurel at Melbourne

Hyderabad: Indian batters KL Rahul and Dhruv Jurel had contrasting outings on the first day of the second unofficial Test match between India A and Australia A at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne on Thursday.

Rahul, who opened the batting for India A, was out for just four runs while Jurel compiled a patient 80 off 186 balls as India A faltered in a stern test of pace and bounce to be dismissed for just 161 in their first innings.

Australia were 53/2 when stumps were drawn for the day.

The Indian batters were clueless against excellent seam bowling as they dished out a shoddy batting display. Apart from Jurel, only Devdutt Padikkal managed to score above 20 runs (26).

Rahul was done in by a peach of a delivery from Scott Boland while Michael Neser (4/27) was the wrecker-in-chief. Rahul couldn’t do much to a Boland delivery that straightened after pitching and took the outside edge.

Neser opened the floodgates in the third ball of the innings when he had Abhimanyu Easwaran caught by Corey Rocchiccioli in the gully region. The next ball he induced an edge from Sai Sudarshan as Cameron Bancroft took a regulation catch to put India at 0/2.

Rahul followed next and when Ruturaj Gaikwad was out after he jabbed with hard hands at a delivery that bounced extra from length to be caught at slips, India were staring down the barrel at 11/4.

Jurel and Padikkal tried resurrecting the Indian innings but Padikkal was out to Neser for 26. Jurel, then in the company of Nitish Kumar Reddy (16), helped the Indian score past the 100-run mark but once Reddy was out to Beau Webster, the floodgates opened again.

The only good part of the Indian innings was the way Jurel handled the Australian bowlers. His composure was top notch and his ability to play late, using soft hands, yielded success. He also losended his bottom hand grip, whenever there was an extra bounce, to ensure that the ball did not carry to the slip cordon.

Although Rishabh Pant will be India’s first-choice wicket-keeper for the upcoming Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Jurel can take Sarfaraz Khan’s place in the middle-order as a pure batter.

Rahul will have another innings to prove himself and get used to the conditions before Rahul and Jurel link up with the Indian team at Perth on November 12.