Ruturaj Gaikwad has been handed two India Test squad calls in the last 15 months-he was first to the West Indies tour in June, where he was not considered for the playing XI and Yashasvi Jaiswal was preferred.
Ruturaj Gaikwad A ‘World Class Cricketer’
More recently, he was called up for the South Africa tour, but had to be withdrawn after a finger injury. Although he couldn’t return for the series in February against England as he continues to recuperate from his injury, exclusion from the Bangladesh series has hurt the fans. However, veteran Indian batsman Ambati Rayudu did placate some fans when he said Gaikwad was a “top-class batter” and would be given enough chances. Speaking to Hindustan Times at an LLC event in Delhi, Rayudu, who will be turning out for Konark Suryas Odisha in the upcoming tournament, starting in Jodhpur later this month, was optimistic about Gaikwad.
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“I feel he has a lot of time ahead of him and, you know, there’s no hurry. I would say he has all the qualities to be a top-class, world-class cricketer and going forward, he has enough years in him, and I’m sure he’ll make it really big.”
Gaikwad’s Past Performance
Gaikwad had also been named a stand-by opener for last year’s World Test Championship final, although he stepped down to get married and was replaced by Jaiswal. At 27 years old, he has accumulated 2,212 runs in 31 first-class matches for Maharashtra, boasting an average of 57.01 and six hundreds to his name. Recently Gaikwad was handed over the responsibility of captaining Team C in the ongoing Duleep Trophy. So far in the four innings, he has posted two successive fifties and has accumulated 171 runs.
Apart from this, Rayudu is full of assurance that India will surely be one of the favorites when the two teams play each other, in the Border-Gavaskar series, a five-Test series scheduled to be played Down Under in December. He said: “I feel it will be very, very competitive but India, I feel are from favourites.”
