Prasidh, Devdutt, Easwaran To Make Themselves Available For Their Respective Teams in Vijay Hazare Trophy
Devdutt Padikkal, Prasidh Krishna, and Abhimanyu Easwaran will participate in their respective teams during the knockout stage of the 2024-25 Vijay Hazare Trophy starting January 9 in Vadodara. KL Rahul has requested a break, while Washington Sundar could be available from the semi-finals onwards if Tamil Nadu advances to that level.
Padikkal and Prasidh will depart with most of the Indian squad from Sydney on Wednesday, whereas Abhimanyu received authorization to leave a day early. The Cricket Association of Bengal secured him an earlier flight to ensure he could join the state team in Vadodara, with layovers in Singapore and Ahmedabad.
On Wednesday, Abhimanyu plans to practice with the Bengal squad before their pre-quarter-final match against Haryana. Akash Deep, the other Bengal player in the India squad, has been sidelined due to a back issue, which also kept him out of the final Test in Australia, and will instead head to the Centre of Excellence (formerly the National Cricket Academy) in Bengaluru.
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Prasidh and Padikkal are set to meet up with the Karnataka squad by January 10, in preparation for their quarter-final clash against Baroda the following day. Initially part of only the India A squad on a shadow tour before the Border-Gavaskar series, Padikkal was included in the Test team after Rohit Sharma’s late arrival due to the birth of his son. Padikkal played in India’s 295-run victory in Perth but did not feature in any of the subsequent Tests.
Prasidh, on the other hand, played in the last Test in Sydney—marking his first Test appearance in a year. He had a match haul of six wickets, dismissing Steven Smith in both innings. Both Padikkal and Prasidh had shown promise in the four-day matches for India A leading up to the Test series.
For Abhimanyu, the encounter against Haryana will mark his first official game in two months, as he was on the sidelines during all five Tests in Australia. He had been vying for a back-up opener position, with a chance to play in Perth during Rohit’s absence, but disappointing scores of 7, 12, 0, and 17 in four innings for India A in Australia diminished his chances of making his Test debut.
Before the India A tour, however, he had been in exceptional form, scoring four first-class hundreds in four matches throughout the season-opening Duleep Trophy and the subsequent Ranji Trophy.
Following India’s 3-1 series defeat in Australia, which resulted in losing the Border-Gavaskar Trophy after a decade, head coach Gautam Gambhir expressed his wish to see Test players make themselves available for domestic cricket whenever feasible.
“I would always encourage everyone to play domestic cricket,” he remarked. “This reflects the importance that domestic cricket must hold. Not just one game. If they are available and committed to playing red-ball cricket, it’s essential for everyone to participate in domestic cricket. It’s as straightforward as that. If domestic cricket isn’t valued, the players you seek will never emerge.”
