NEWS
Follow UsThe round one of Duleep Trophy 2024 didn’t begin well for the star-studded India B batting lineup that boasts the likes of Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sarfaraz Khan, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Washington Sundar. The pace trip of Khaleel Ahmed, Akash Deep, and Avesh Khan bowled disciplined lines for India A and reaped the rewards for them, getting two wickets each.
India B were in serious trouble at 94/7 after Sai Kishore also returned to the pavilion after Khalil got him caught in the slips.
That’s when the 19-year-old brother of Sarfaraz, Musheer Khan, dropped anchor and decided to grind the tough phase out. He saw through the troublesome second session for India B, where they lost five wickets. Saini, who isn’t known for his batting, applied himself and batted with a lot of concentration and control, took singles whenever given, and defended his way to the end of the first day.
Meanwhile, Musheer kept getting the runs from one end. Once his half-century was done, he upped the heat in the third session and targeted his Mumbai teammate and spinner Tanush Kotian for some lusty blows down the ground and brought up his hundred on Duleep Trophy debut.
He continued with even more assurance on the morning of Day 2, surviving a few close calls, but backed himself to play the big shots on the backfoot whenever the pacers tried to bowl short to him. That included shots both in front of and behind the square on the leg side.
The youngster benefitted immensely from this measured but strategic approach, as it allowed him and Saini to stitch together an unbeaten partnership of 175 runs, taking India B from 94/7 to 269/7 at the time of writing his report. They are just 22 runs behind the highest 8th wicket partnership in Duleep Trophy history, which was achieved by Abhishek Nayar and Ramesh Powar vs North Zone in Gwalior in 2010.
The 150 for him came in the process, taking a comfortable double against Kuldeep Yadav. It was followed by a sedate raise of the bat, and a 'keep calm and keep batting' gesture from his brother in the dressing room.
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Musheer, who currently averages 58.77 after 10 first-class innings, revealed in a statement to Wisden after the Ranji Trophy season that his father (who’s also his coach) is the one who has always pushed him to bat long.
“Our father has conditioned us to score big,” Musheer said. “For us, our century starts at 150. He’s told us to play our shots after reaching that milestone. We need to play the whole day, stay at the wicket. And we’re very hungry for runs.”
India B benefitted immensely with such strong principles of batting in their number three, and as a result, are moving towards a good first innings score
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