Test
no. 2633 got off to a start this morning at Sinhalese
Sports Club Ground, Colombo – with India winning the toss and opting to bat
first !
A post on
debutant Saransh Jain – but before you proceed – can you connect : Yadavindra Singh, Dhiraj Parsana, Dilip
Doshi, Sandeep Patil, Ashok Malhotra, Pranab Roy, Arunlal, Rakesh Shukla,
Narendra Hirwani, WV Raman, Sadagoppan Ramesh, MS Dhoni and few more others
!!!
Winning the toss, Shubman
Gill had no hesitation in batting first, and his counterpart Dhananjaya de
Silva conceded he would have done the same. For Sri Lanka, Kamil Mishara takes his first
steps in the Test side on the back of some scintillating recent form, albeit in
the white-ball formats. Pasindu Sooriyabandara has also been given an opportunity
to avenge his golden duck in the first Test, where he entered as a concussion
substitute for Dinesh Chandimal. India meanwhile have made just the one change,
with the speculation finally confirmed that debutant offspinner
Saransh Jain replacing Kuldeep Yadav.
The Board of
Control for Cricket in India announced that Kuldeep Yadav missed selection for
the second Test against Sri Lanka due to an incomplete recovery from a viral
illness, though he remains eligible to take the
field as a concussion substitute if needed. [the latter coloured part is eerie !]
India was hailed as
land of spinners – there was the famous quartet Bishan Bedi, Chandrasekhar,
Erapalli Prasanna and Venkatraghavan spinning out opponents – there were the likes of VV Kumar, Doshi,
Shivalkar, Goel, Hans, Dhiraj Parsana, Ramnarayan, Shukla, Raghuram Bhat and more – who could
not make the cut over the dominance of the quartet and Ranji matches were
‘bowler-dominated !’
If one were to make
a list of Off-spinners who donned Indian cap, that will include : Ghulam Ahmed; Nirode Ranjan Chowdhury; Jasu
Patel; V. M. Muddiah; E. A. S. Prasanna; S. Venkataraghavan; Shivlal Yadav; Gopal
Sharma; Arshad Ayub; M. Venkatramana; Rajesh Chauhan; Aashish Kapoor; Nikhil
Chopra; Sarandeep Singh; Harbhajan Singh; Ravichandran Ashwin; Jayant Yadav; Washington
Sundar and … now - Saransh Jain
Saransh Jain a consistent performer for Madhya Pradesh,
the allrounder is coming off his most productive Ranji season is considered to
be a handful against a left-hand-heavy Sri Lanka side.
Saransh Jain is a
33-year-old allrounder from Madhya Pradesh who bowls offspin and bats
left-handed. In 54 first-class games, he has scored 2223 runs at an average of
31.75 and taken 188 wickets at 27.30. He has also featured in 67 List A and T20
matches but red-ball cricket is his strongest suit. Son of former first-class cricketer Subodh
Jain, Saransh has been a consistent performer in domestic cricket over the last
few seasons. He is a late bloomer: he made his Ranji Trophy debut in 2014 but
came into the limelight only in 2022. Having played just eight first-class
games until then, he starred in the knockouts for Madhya Pradesh, taking 13
wickets and scoring a half-century to help his side clinch their maiden title.
The latest Ranji
Trophy was his most productive season: he scored 518 runs at an average of
57.55 and took 30 wickets at 20.43. It came on the back of a successful Duleep
Trophy campaign. Playing for Central Zone, he scored two half-centuries and
took 16 wickets in two games to be named the Player of the Series.
For this Lankan
tour, Washington Sundar was unavailable for
selection for the first Test due to a hamstring injury. The presence of several
left-hand batters in the Sri Lanka side meant the selectors wanted an
offspinner in the squad. Jain happened to be in the right place at the right
time. Earlier this month, he was in Sri Lanka for an India A tour. In the first test, India played Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav & Manav Suthar.
Remember the bespectacled
Dilip Doshi playing against Kim Hughes Aussies.
Dilip Rasiklal Doshi, was one of
only two Test bowlers who played in their first tests after the age of thirty,
yet went on to take 100 wickets, the other being Clarrie Grimmett. Dilip Doshi, the slow leftarm spinner with
spectacles, was born in Rajkot in 1947, debuted in 1979 when he was 32+, went
on to play 33 Tests and 15 One dayers.
Having waited for so long, he didn't waste any time in making his presence
felt. With figures of 6/103 & 2/64 he was India's best bowler in that debut
match. He performed well in a One dayer
at Australia too and won Man of the Match.
Yet
Dilip Doshi was not the oldest debutant – it was Rustomji Jamshedji —@ 41 years 27 days in Dec
1933 against England at Bombay Gymkhana. The left arm spinner played
in a solitary test taking 3 wickets.
All the best to
Saransh Jain !
Ans to the Q
at the start : the list of the players (there are some more) who started their
Test Career at Chepauk ground !!
With
regards – S Sampathkumar
23.8.2026
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