India B was boosted by the last-minute addition of Suryakumar Yadav for its third-round Duleep Trophy fixture against India D starting Thursday at the Rural Development Trust Stadium B-ground in Anantapur.
Suryakumar, originally a part of India C, was omitted from the revised squad list due to a hand injury. However, after completing his rehab at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru, Suryakumar joined India B on the match eve and replaced Sarfaraz Khan.
Earlier, Ishan Kishan, drafted in India D, was ruled out of the first round due to a groin injury and eventually left out of the revised squads for the second and third rounds. However, he was accommodated in India C and played the second-round match against India B.
Even if of little relevance in the grander scheme of things, the outcome of this game will bear consequences on the title race. For those engaging in permutations, a win against India D, and either a draw or loss for India C against India A, will secure the title for Easwaran-led India B. If it manages only a first-innings lead, it will need India A to do the same, to claim the honours.
In this context, Suryakumar’s 82-game First-Class experience will add weight to an out-of-depth batting order that produced a no-show in its previous match barring its openers Abhimanyu Easwaran and N. Jagadeesan. India D, on the other hand, would take note of his 114 T20 strike rate off left-arm spinners, the least among all types of bowlers he has faced, and pit him against veteran Saurabh Kumar or Nishant Sindhu.
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Suyash Prabhudessai’s extended net outing on Wednesday hinted that a change might be on the cards in India B’s batting order.
India D batters will draw inspiration from the 525 runs piled on by India C in the previous match at the venue, to bow out of the tournament on a high. So far, Ricky Bhui and Devdutt Padikkal have been left to do the heavy lifting with the bat. Big guns Shreyas Iyer and Sanju Samson whose robust starts were undone by the venomous nature of a fourth-day wicket in the last match, are unlikely to encounter such perils at the B-ground.
India B’s pace and spin spearheads, Mukesh Kumar and Rahul Chahar, would want to replicate their feats from the previous match, where they scalped four wickets each in the first essay.
In the opposite camp, Arshdeep Singh, Harshit Rana and Vidwath Kaverappa will turn to Anshul Kamboj’s eight-wicket haul at the venue for hope, and look to extract reverse swing in the dry and hot conditions of Anantapur.
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