KL Rahul and Abhimanyu Easwaran Likely to Open for India A Against Australia

The five-Test Border-Gavaskar Trophy between India and Australia will be played from November 22. Earlier, a series of two unofficial Test matches was held between India-A and Australia-A. The first match was won by Australia-A by 7 wickets. Now, the second unofficial Test match between the two teams will start from November 7. Team India will likely get a new opening pair in this match. In the first unofficial Test match, Ruturaj Gaikwad and Abhimanyu Easwaran came out to open.

KL Rahul will open with Abhimanyu Easwaran

According to an ESPNcricinfo report, KL Rahul and Dhruv Jurel have already left for Australia before the rest of the Indian Test squad. They are likely to play in the second unofficial Test match. Rahul can be seen opening with Abhimanyu Easwaran, who has scored mountains of runs in domestic cricket. At the same time, captain Gaikwad can play in the middle order. The report also said that the wicketkeeping responsibility can be given to Dhruv Jurel in place of Ishan Kishan.

The first Test match will be played in Perth

The first Test match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy between India and Australia will be played on 22 November at the Perth ground. Regular captain Rohit Sharma is unlikely to play in the first Test match. After losing the Test series 0-3 against New Zealand, he said that it is not certain whether I will be able to go to Perth. In such a situation, the team management will have excellent openers in the form of KL Rahul and Abhimanyu Easwaran to open with Yashasvi Jaiswal in the first Test. Both of them will also play in the unofficial Test match, which will give them time to prepare and they will be able to adjust better to the conditions of Australia.

KL Rahul is not getting runs from his bat

KL Rahul has not been able to perform as per his name for some time. He did not even get a place in the playing eleven of the second and third Tests against New Zealand. Sarfaraz Khan got a chance in his place. Rahul’s career is going through a bad phase and so far he has scored a total of 2551 runs in 75 innings in 44 Test matches for the Indian team while opening, including 7 centuries and 12 half-centuries. Rahul has batted in the middle order since 2023-24 and has scored 339 runs in 10 innings at an average of 37.66. Now he is looking for a big innings. Rahul also performed well while opening on the England tour. He has experience of facing new balls abroad.

On the other hand, Abhimanyu Easwaran has not yet made his Test debut for Team India, but his bat has spoken loudly in domestic cricket. He has scored 7657 runs in 100 first-class matches, including 27 centuries.

India A squad for the second unofficial Test match:

Ruturaj Gaikwad (captain), Abhimanyu Easwaran, Sai Sudarshan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Devdutt Padikkal, Ricky Bhui, Baba Indrajith, Ishan Kishan, Abhishek Porel, Mukesh Kumar, Khaleel Ahmed, Navdeep Saini, Manav Suthar, Tanush Kotian, Prasidh Krishna, KL Rahul, Dhruv Jurel (wicketkeeper)