India vs England: How flawless English plan dismissed Sai Sudharsan for a duck on Test debut

A large part of the build-up to the Headingley Test match centred around who would bat at the coveted no.3 spot for India. It was a well-kept secret till the first morning when Shubman Gill revealed that debutant Sai Sudharsan would bat at one drop, a position once made memorable by Rahul Dravid and Cheteshwar Pujara. 

Fittingly, it was Pujara who came in as the special guest to present Sudharsan with the maiden Test cap in the Indian team huddle. Unfortunately for the Tamil Nadu batter, it was the only pleasant memory for him in the day as his debut stint lasted all of four deliveries, glancing a harmless delivery down the leg-side to the keeper Jamie Smith who responded with an excellent diving catch.

The surprising part of Sudharsan's dismissal is how clear-cut the plan from England was. There may have been an uncertainty about whether the left-hander would debut or not but the home side appeared to have a plan already in place. Captain Ben Stokes, who was also bowling from one end, immediately put the field in place. It was a fairly regulation field with three slips and a gully but a leg slip was also in place. 

Sudharsan's first delivery was from Brydon Carse, who had just removed a well-set KL Rahul to a lazy drive that found the edge to first slip. Carse bowled a straighter line delivery that swung in just a bit to rap Sudharsan on the pad, but there was probably a bit of pad involved. While this could have been shrugged off a one-off, Stokes' deliveries to Sudharsan next over proved that England indeed hade the leg-side trap ready for the debutant. The leg slip was still in place, and after getting one to angle across that found a soft edge from Sudharsan, the England captain bowled two more deliveries on the pads. 

The first of those deflected the pad before settling into Smith's gloves down the leg-side. Sudharsan, even with the leg slip in, may have fancied getting off the mark in Test cricket with the freebie but couldn't connect. The next delivery, he made contact but it was a fatal connection, one so fine that it evaded leg slip but couldn't get past Smith's sensational dive to the right. The instant reactions from Stokes and his mates suggested that it was a plan, one that worked more quickly than they would have anticipated. 

Sudharsan does have a tendency to have an exaggerated shuffle while playing the flick, as a result of which his leg-glance strokes do go a bit fine. This was seen a lot during IPL 2025 where he fetched boundaries with this shot. However, in red-ball cricket where the fields can be more attacking, more so in England, Stokes and co went for the punt and it worked a treat for them. 

Sudharsan's dismissal for a duck just after Rahul's departure meant a satisfying end to the morning session for England who were mostly dominated by India's opening pair.