Sai Sudharsan manifested India Test call-up with Dukes ball practice: Alec Stewart
Former England cricketer Alec Stewart has given insights into his special Dukes ball practice with the hope of earning an India Test call-up. Sudharsan earned his maiden Test call-up for the upcoming series against England, set to begin from June 20. The 23-year-old has been scoring a plethora of runs across formats of late and is expected to make his debut in the upcoming series.advertisementRecently, Alec Stewart shared an anecdote from Sudharsan's county stint with Surrey across the 2023 and 2024 seasons. Stewart, who was also the director of cricket at Surrey, was effusive in his praise of the Indian youngster. He also revealed how the Tamil Nadu batter used to take Dukes ball with him to practice back home to make sure that he was ready if an opportunity arose for an India call-up."When he's gone back home, he's taken some of our Dukes cricket balls back with him. I didn't charge him for them and just let him have them. But, no he had that forward-thinking [mindset] and trained with those balls, so that when he comes back to us, or hopefully [is] picked for India on tour, he'll have had nice practice against the Dukes cricket ball as well,' Alex Stewart was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.advertisement
Furthermore, Stewart dissected Sudharsan's meticulous technique of playing the ball late, which is a key to success in England."He plays the ball late, and that's the most important thing here. If you go too hard and get too far out in front of yourself, when the ball seams, you're not in control, then your bat can get outside of your eyeline, whereas he plays it under his eyeline, plays it under his eyes, and plays it late. And even if he does nick it a little bit, like Kane Williamson, for example - you can nick it, but it still falls short of slip and that again is a real attribute of Sai's,' he added.In the 29 first class matches so far, Sudharsan has scored 1957 runs at an average of 39.93 with seven hundreds and five fifties to his name. He recently won the Orange Cap and the Emerging Player of the season in the Indian Premier League 2025 (IPL 2025) after finishing as the leading run scorer with 759 runs from 15 innings. He will be eager to continue his marvellous form in the upcoming series, if given an opportunity in the playing XI.
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