Sai Sudharsan will make his India Test debut against England on Friday.
Young top-order batter B Sai Sudharsan received his India Test cap from veteran Cheteshwar Pujara ahead of the first Test against England in Leeds on Friday.
Sai Sudharsan will thus make his Test debut on Friday and this also means that Sai Sudharsan will bat at No.3 with new skipper Shubman Gill batting at No.4. Shubman Gill confirmed the development at the toss on Friday. “Sai makes his debut, Karun comes in. Sai will bat at three,” Shubman Gill, who is also Sudharsan’s captain at Gujarat Titans (GT) said.
Sai Sudharsan’s inclusion in the India playing XI comes in the aftermath of the Test retirements of veterans Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli as the younger generation of Indian cricketers get ready to step up. The 24-year-old has so far played three ODIs and one T20I for India so far.
Since making his First-Class debut for Tamil Nadu against Hyderabad in December 2022, Sai Sudharsan has played a total of 29 First-Class matches. The left-handed batter impressed on his First-Class debut, scoring 179 and 42 in each of his innings as the match against Hyderabad ended in a draw.
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Overall, Sai Sudharsan has scored 1957 runs from 49 innings at an average of 39.93, scoring seven fifties and five centuries. During the 2024-25 Ranji Trophy season, Sai Sudharsan aggregated 304 runs from four innings at an average of 76, including one fifty and one century.
Sai Sudharsan, though, did not play the unofficial Tests for India A against England Lions that preceded the Test series between England and India. In IPL 2025 just before that, Sudharsan accumulated 759 runs from 15 matches at a strike-rate of 156.17. This included six fifties and one century.
India: Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill(c), Rishabh Pant(w), Karun Nair, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna.
England: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes(c), Jamie Smith(w), Chris Woakes, Brydon Carse, Josh Tongue, Shoaib Bashir.
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