 "India pacer Mayank Yadav bowls during the first T20I against Bangladesh in Gwalior. AP")
India continued to dominate Bangladesh at home, thrashing the visitors by seven wickets in the opening game of the three-T20I series in Gwalior on Sunday after sweeping the Test series 2-0.
Sunday’s fixture, the first international match taking place in Gwalior in 14 years, witnessed left-arm pacer Arshdeep Singh (3/14) and mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy (3/31) collecting three wickets each as India bowled Bangladesh out for a modest 127 after opting to field.
As it happened | India vs Bangladesh 1st T20I
Chakravarthy made an emphatic return to international cricket for the first time since the 2021 T20 World Cup, the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) leg-spinner making a fine recovery after getting hit for 15 in his first over.
Later, Hardik Pandya’s whirlwind 39 not out off 16 balls along with skipper Suryakumar Yadav and opener Sanju Samson’s 29-run knocks off 14 and 19 deliveries respectively helped the hosts chase the target down with more than eight overs to spare.
The series opener also witnessed the international debuts of pacer Mayank Yadav and batting all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy, the two finally donning the blue jersey after dishing out impressive performances in the Indian Premier League (IPL) earlier this year.
Read | Mayank Yadav’s positive first impression and more takeaways from first T20I
Lucknow Super Giants pacer Yadav did not bowl anywhere near the express speeds that had clocked in the IPL, in which he was regularly going past the 150 kmph mark with his fastest ball being a 156.7 kmph thunderbolt.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsOn Sunday, playing his first competitive match since 30 April with an injury cutting his IPL season short, Yadav started off with a maiden and collected his first ever international wicket in his eighth delivery by having Mahmudullah caught at sweeper point.
Yadav would eventually finish with figures of 1/21, and though he did bowl in excess of 90 miles per hour (roughly 145 kmph) a few times with his fastest ball clocking 149.9 kmph.
Later in the day, Reddy chipped in with an unbeaten 16 off 15 deliveries, smashing leg-spinner Rishad Hossain for his first six in international cricket along the way and playing a supporting role in the fourth-wicket partnership with Pandya.
The seam-bowling all-rounder had also bowled a couple of wicketless overs in which he conceded 17 runs.
Yadav and Reddy’s debuts does make things interesting for the Indian team management as it builds its squad for the next set of ICC events — next year’s Champions Trophy (ODI) in Pakistan and the 2026 T20 World Cup which India will jointly host with Sri Lanka.
Their debuts will also force their respective IPL franchise to tweak their plans for this year’s mega auction.
How Yadav and Reddy’s debuts will impact LSG and SRH’s mega-auction plans
Now that Yadav and Reddy have become capped players and thus will command a higher retention price, both Lucknow Super Giants and Sunrisers Hyderabad will have to rethink their retention strategy.
Lucknow Super Giants
This website had earlier indicated that the Lucknow Super Giants were likely to retain skipper KL Rahul along with explosive wicketkeeper-batter Nicholas Pooran besides Yadav, leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi and choose between Australian all-rounder Marcus Stoinis and Quinton de Kock.
With the BCCI later specifying a franchise could get back up to six players from their 2024 squad – whether through retention or by using the Right To Match (RTM) card – with at least one of them an uncapped player, the franchise is likely to pick middle-order batter Ayush Badoni as well.
Yadav would have been their first choice for the uncapped player’s slot, which will cost the franchise Rs 4 crore. Now that he has made his debut, the Delhi pacer will be retained at a minimum price of Rs 11 crore.
With the express pace that he has as well as his control, there simply doesn’t arise a situation where the Super Giants let go of a generational talent like Yadav.
So while Pooran and Bishnoi are automatic picks and the franchise will be eager to retain one of Stoinis and de Kock, Yadav’s elevation to the status of a capped player only increases the pressure on skipper Rahul, whose strike rate has been something of a concern and whose captaincy skills have also been questioned time and again.
Should the franchise choose to continue with Rahul as their skipper, and retain him at the Rs 18 crore slot, they might have to drop the plan of choosing between Stoinis and de Kock, given Bishnoi will be something they’d be keen on retaining.
Sunrisers Hyderabad
While LSG failed to reach the playoffs last season after having done so on debut in 2022 as well as in 2023, SRH turned things around in style last year as they reached the final in Pat Cummins’ maiden season in charge after languishing in the bottom half for a majority of their recent seasons.
The 2016 champions had come within touching distance of winning a second title, only to get outplayed by the Kolkata Knight Riders in the final in Chennai.
Reddy had proven to be quite a useful option in the Sunrisers middle-order, scoring 303 runs in the season at an average of 33.67 and an impressive strike rate of 142.92.
The Andhra cricketer would have been an automatic pick for the all-rounder’s slot. However, with the 21-year-old now making his debut, SRH will suddenly have to rethink their options.
As impressive a cricketer as he is, Reddy isn’t as integral to SRH as Yadav is to LSG. Besides Cummins’ inspirational leadership, the opening pair of Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head (nicknamed ‘Travishek’) as well as explosive middle-order batter Heinrich Klaasen had played central roles in the team reaching the final.
Let’s also not forget left-arm quick T Natarajan collecting 19 wickets to finish as the fourth-highest wicket-taker.
In a team stacked with the kind of talent that SRH has, it will be difficult for Reddy to find a place in the five capped retention slots. He would have been the first choice for the uncapped slot, which will now likely be awarded to Abdul Samad.