Ruturaj Gaikwad just can’t put a step right these days and on day one of India A’s tour of Australia, the disappointment continued as he fell for a golden duck.
The first unofficial Test began in Mackay on Friday with Gaikwad walking out to bat with Abhimanyu Easwaran. Neither made much of an impact as Australia A picked up both openers cheaply.
ALSO READ: Reason revealed why KL Rahul turned down Lucknow Super Giants’ top retention offer
India A are playing Australia A just ahead of the main side’s series on Australia shores, the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. There are two unofficial Test matches with India hoping that some of these players can be valuable on the Australian tour. Easwaran, for instance, was named in the squad as backup opener.
Sai Sudharsan, Devdutt Padikkal, Baba Indrajith, Ishant Kishan and Nitish Reddy form the rest of the batting line-up. Nitish, like Easwaran, is a part of the Test side that tours Australia later in November.
The bowling attack has Navdeep Saini, Prasidh Krishna and Mukesh Kumar. Prasidh is in the main Test team while Saini and Mukesh and reserve players. Manav Suthar, highly touted as the next spinner to come through the ranks, is the other bowler in India A’s starting XI in the first unofficial Test.
After captaining India to a Gold Medal at the Asian Games last year, Ruturaj Gaikwad has been seen in the captaincy level at the A team level, but has completely gone off the radar across formats for India.
He was ignored from the Test squad named for the home series against Bangladesh and New Zealand and the upcoming tour of Australia. The chances haven’t come in limited-overs cricket either with him missing out from the T20I squad for South Africa next month.
He is the captain of the India A side on these unofficial Tests but the latest dismissal, a golden duck while being stranded down the leg-side, does not give him great leverage to make a comeback to the national team.
Check out how Ruturaj Gaikwad fell for a golden duck off the first ball of India A’s innings.
The IPL retention deadline is on Friday and Ruturaj Gaikwad is one of the few players retained at Chennai Super Kings alongside MS Dhoni (uncapped), Ravindra Jadeja, Shivam Dube and Matheesha Pathirana, according to reports.
