What are your initial memories of Rajat Patidar’s batting? The answer to that question would be his hundred against the Bengal pace duo of Dinda and Mukesh Kumar in the Ranji Trophy, alongside a fifty versus Mohammed Shami and Ashok Dinda in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. On both occasions, the Madhya Pradesh batter had the intent of dealing in boundaries, and that is how he has largely played in domestic cricket.
Some years after those two superlative knocks, Patidar finally got his reward as he made his Test debut against England in the ongoing five-match series. Unfortunately for Patidar, he has had a miserable time with the bat, scoring just 63 runs in six innings. Just examine his stats further and you would notice he has a strike rate of 38.41. Now, that is a shockingly low strike rate for a batter who has gained a reputation for playing shots.
The crux of Patidar’s problems is that he hasn’t played his natural game. There is also a school of thought in domestic cricket that feels Patidar tends to gift his wicket. After failing in three consecutive Tests, he perhaps won’t get another opportunity to play for India in the long format. He is already 30 years old.
If Patidar indeed gets left out of the playing XI for the final Test in Dharamsala, then Devdutt Padikkal, the left-handed batter from Karnataka, would get the nod. Paddikal has had a rather interesting graph in first-class cricket. He composed his maiden first-class hundred only in May 2021-22. A couple of years after he compiled that ton, he has been in a rich vein of form in Ranji Trophy, having aggregated 723 runs at a stunning average of 92.66. He already has three hundreds to his name this season. Padikkal also accumulated a hundred in a first-class game against England Lions last month.
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So, how does Padikkal go about collecting his runs? To reiterate the point, let’s travel back in time to the Ranji Trophy semi-final played between Karnataka and Bengal in 2019-20. On a seaming track at the Eden Gardens, the much-vaunted Karnataka batting unit couldn’t cross the 200-run mark in both the innings and succumbed to a 174-run defeat.
The one Karnataka player who seemed to have an idea of how to play the likes of Mukesh Kumar, Akash Deep and Ishan Porel in helpful conditions was Padikkal as he finished with a resolute 62 in the second dig. The southpaw moved just enough forward or back depending on the length of the ball.
To summarise his game, Padikkal depends more on economy of movement rather than having a trigger. When that kind of a method works, it might look very pleasing to the eye. However, when a batter is dismissed due to lack of footwork, such a player’s game would be questioned time and again. For a player like Padikkal, it is perhaps important to have complete conviction in his game.
Padikkal also prefers pace on the ball. So, the conditions in Dharamsala, could suit his method. Although let’s whisper that Patidar also is arguably better against pace than spin. But it is probably the right time to blood a youngster who is around six years younger. If that happens, then it would be a proud moment for his family, especially his mother, Ambili Padikkal. The story goes that even before Padikkal was born, his parents had decided if their second child turns out to be a boy, then they would make him a cricketer.
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