Devdutt Padikkal performs a shot on Day 2 of the fifth Test match towards England, at Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium, in Dharamsala on Friday.
| Photo Credit: ANI
 More than as soon as, the ball off the surface fringe of his bat flew out of fielders’ attain.
Some misfields raised his boundary depend. A few off-drives and one cowl drive from the left-hander had the gang on the HPCA Stadium right here at its toes. A straight six introduced up his 50 on Test debut. In brief, Devdutt Padikkal’s knock had a contact of all the pieces from being fortuitous to unbelievable.
Riding on the boldness of scoring 556 runs for Karnataka within the present Ranji Trophy season, to not overlook his 191 runs, together with a century, from three innings for India-A towards England Lions earlier this 12 months, Padikkal displayed model and magnificence on the most important stage on Friday.
His 103-ball 65 — dotted with six and 10 boundaries, totally on the off-side — got here at a time when India wanted to tighten its grip on the match. The 97-run fourth-wicket stand with Sarfaraz Khan — his team-mate from India — stored the host heading in the right direction of batting out the opposition.
Padikkal knew of his debut after Rajat Patidar reported sick on the eve of this match. “Regardless of when you get to know (of your debut), there is always going to be nervousness around. That was still there. I got a message the previous night saying that I could be playing. I was nervous, it was a tough night’s sleep but it is something you also enjoy at the same time. You live for those days.”
Interestingly, the left-hander selected the edged-boundary previous the lone slip as his better of the ten fours on this present day.
“Every boundary is enjoyable but the first boundary, off the edge, was most enjoyable because those were my first runs in Test cricket.”
Asked to replicate on the part when abdomen sickness stored him away from nets, Padikkal mentioned, “I have always believed that discipline is the key to success. During sickness, I couldn’t do much, but I made sure I was not lagging behind in other areas. I continued to work on myself whether mentally or any other small thing.”
