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KL Rahul may open for India A along with Abhimanyu Easwaran in the second unofficial Test against Australia A starting in Melbourne on Thursday. Rohit Sharma is likely to be unavailable at the start of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. In such a situation, Rahul and Easwaran have a direct fight for the opening spot with Yashasvi Jaiswal. The first Test is to be played in Perth from November 22.
ESPN Cricinfo has learned that Rahul and Dhruv Jurel have already reached Australia to spend time with India A before the team. Rahul will open with Abhimanyu, while captain Rituraj Gaikwad, who opened in the first Test, will play in the middle order. While Dhruv Jurel will keep the wicket in place of Ishan Kishan. Indian captain Rohit Sharma is unlikely to participate in the initial part of the Australia tour due to personal reasons. After the 0-3 defeat against New Zealand on Sunday, he said that he is not very sure.
If Rohit Sharma remains unavailable, the Indian team management has many good options for the top order. Abhimanyu has been selected as the third opener for the Australia tour. At the time of his selection, he had scored centuries in the last four first-class matches. Overall, Abhimanyu has scored 27 centuries in 100 matches at an average of 49.40.
Rahul was primarily a contender for the middle order. On the 2023-24 South Africa tour, Rahul batted in the middle order in Test cricket, where he scored 339 runs in 10 innings at an average of 37.66. This is higher than his career average of 33.87 in 53 Tests.
Playing in the middle order, he also scored a century and two half-centuries in Centurion. However, Rahul also has experience of playing with the new ball abroad and is one of the two Asian openers to score centuries in England, South Africa, and Australia. But as an opener, he has scored 2551 runs in 75 innings at an average of 34.94. Jurel has not played a Test match since the return of Rishabh Pant. But he has secured his place as India's reserve keeper and he looks like a star of the future.
India A squad for the second first-class match: Ruturaj Gaikwad (captain), Abhimanyu Easwaran (vice-captain), Sai Sudarshan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Devdutt Padikkal, Ricky Bhui, Baba Indrajit, Ishan Kishan (wicketkeeper), Abhishek Porel (wicketkeeper), Mukesh Kumar, Khalil Ahmed, Navdeep Saini, Manav Suthar, Tanush Kotian, Prasidh Krishna, KL Rahul, Dhruv Jurel (wicketkeeper)
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