Out-of-favour India batter Devdutt Padikkal is having a stellar Vijay Hazare Trophy campaign. He has already hit four centuries in the first six rounds of the tournament and is the second-highest run-getter with 605 runs. The left-hand batter scored 147 runs against Jharkhand in the opening round and followed that up by hitting 124 runs against Kerala. He hit 113 runs against Puducherry in the fourth round before scoring 108 against Tripura. He scored 91 runs in the latest round against Rajasthan and has played a key role in Karnataka winning all of their six games.
Padikkal snubbed once again
Despite his sensational performances in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, Padikkal was snubbed from India's squad for the upcoming ODI series against New Zealand that will commence from January 11. The 25-year-old broke his silence on being excluded from yet another international assignment and remarked that he isn't disappointed with the outcome. He said that there are many batters waiting in line and all of them have done well.
“I wouldn’t say it was disappointing. Yes, I was looking at the selection and seeing what would come out. But at the same time, I understood that there are so many batters in the line and everyone has been doing really well. And it’s not that easy to push into that one-day side,” Padikkal said in an interview with Indian Express.
“And again, that’s something that as cricketers, you have to make peace with. And you have to just try and do your job and keep scoring runs,” he added.
Padikkal's last appearance in international cricket came in 2024 in the Border-Gavaskar series against Australia. He featured in the first Test in Perth, recording scores of 0 and 25 in the first and second innings respectively. He has so far played two Tests and ODIs each in his international career.
Padikkal credits RCB coaches for his growth
Padikkal then credited Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) coaches Dinesh Karthik and Andy Flower for his growth in the game. The left-hander wanted to play Test cricket growing up, but was able to adapt to white-ball cricket with the help of his coaches.
“As I have grown up wanting to play Test cricket, my game was moulded in a certain way. It was definitely a challenge when I had to make those adjustments to make sure that I am keeping up with the current way T20 cricket is played,” Padikkal stated.
“To be honest, all the credit for that goes to DK (Dinesh Karthik) and Andy (Flower) at RCB. To be honest, the way they helped me through that phase and helped me understand how I can maximise my game in the T20 format helped me a lot in terms of understanding what I needed to do. Earlier, because I was so used to playing in the power play, I was not really thinking about playing that phase after 7-14," he further added.
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India's squad for New Zealand ODIs: Shubman Gill (C), Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul (WK), Shreyas Iyer (VC)*, Washington Sundar, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohd Siraj, Harshit Rana, Prasidh Krishna, Kuldeep Yadav, Rishabh Pant (WK), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Arshdeep Singh, Yashasvi Jaiswal.