Sai Sudharsan took Dukes balls home for practice during Surrey stint, manifested Test call-up: Alec Stewart

Alec Stewart saw Sai Sudharsan honing his skills in English conditions from close quarters when he was the director of cricket at Surrey. The Tamil Nadu batter represented the Brown Caps across the 2023 and 2024 seasons.

Stewart revealed how the southpaw used to take Dukes balls with him to practice back home to ensure that he was prepared if an opportunity arose for an India call-up. Sudharsan will have his chance to show how well the practice worked for him as he is a part of India’s 18-man squad, which takes on England in the five-match Test series, starting on June 20.

“When he’s gone back home, he’s taken some of our Dukes cricket balls back with him. I didn’t charge him for them and just let him have them. But, no he had that forward-thinking [mindset] and trained with those balls, so that when he comes back to us, or hopefully [is] picked for India on tour, he’ll have had nice practice against the Dukes cricket ball as well,” Stewart was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.

He plays the ball late, and that’s the most important thing here: Stewart

The former England wicketkeeper-batter lavished praise on Sudharsan, highlighting his ability to play the ball late, something that can stand him in good stead in English conditions.

“He plays the ball late, and that’s the most important thing here. If you go too hard and get too far out in front of yourself, when the ball seams, you’re not in control, then your bat can get outside of your eyeline, whereas he plays it under his eyeline, plays it under his eyes, and plays it late. And even if he does nick it a little bit, like Kane Williamson, for example – you can nick it, but it still falls short of slip and that again is a real attribute of Sai’s,” he added.

Sudharsan has played three ODIs and one T20I so far. However, this is the first time he has been called up to the Indian Test side. He recently won the Orange Cap in IPL 2025 and will be high on confidence heading into the Test series. The 23-year-old has played 29 first-class games so far, scoring 1957 runs at an average of 39.93.

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