Tamil Nadu batter Sai Sudharsan received his maiden Test call-up last week. Sudharsan will have a point to prove when he turns up India A in second of the unofficial Test against England Lions starting June 6. However, Sudharsan has experience of batting in English conditions. A few days after Tamil Nadu's former coach Sulakshan Kulkarni said that Sudharsan's technique for red-ball cricket is not fine-tuned, the southpaw talked about how the short County stint helped him.
"I think I have played seven games in county cricket, so it gave me a great experience to be honest, it improved my batting multiple folds in terms of technique and in terms of basics to, it told me basics is the most important thing in batting.
"So, I think it should help me and I will focus more on what I learnt and I will try and be aware and create those awareness before going into the series," said Sudharsan after the 20-run defeat to Mumbai Indians (MI) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 eliminator on May 30.
Sudharsan finished the IPL 2025 as leading run-scorer. He became the fifth batter to score more than 750 runs in an IPL season. He talked about changes in habit for a long series of red-ball cricket after two months of IPL. In addition, he hinted about leaving for England a little early as GT have been knocked out of the tournament.
"Definitely, after a long three months of white-ball tournament, certain things would have changed in your batting. I think focusing more on basics and bringing back those to red ball cricket will take some time, we will have some good time before the series starts.
"In our mind, we were planning only to leave on the 4th from IPL, so we were not thinking about when to leave for India A or the Test team, but if that was the plan the Test team would have left on 6th, but now we will have to have a conversation and see how it goes," said the young batter.
What TN coach said about Sudharsan's technique
“His domestic record is not great. When I was the coach, I saw him play on a seaming track in at least two matches. And he didn’t play well there. His technique against the moving ball needs to improve,” Kulkarni was quoted as saying by TOI.
“He has a tendency to play away from the body, while the secret to success in England is to play late and play the ball right under your nose. He has to curb some of his strokes and should play straight and close to the body. He has to work to get the technique right before the tour.”
Sudharsan's red-ball record
Sudharsan has played 39 first-class games so far and scored 1,957 runs at an average of 39.93. He has scored seven centuries and five half-centuries.