Sai Sudharsan made his Test debut against England in the first game at Headingley. There were doubts about whether the 23-year-old would feature in the playing XI, given how good Karun Nair has been, but the team management backed Sai for the role. Karun has been slotted at number six. Meanwhile, batting first, KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal handed India a perfect start, but just close to Lunch, Rahul departed for 42 runs.
That brought Sai to the crease, and the youngster never looked to be in control. He was close to getting out in the first ball itself, but the Chennai-born survived. In the next over, England captain Ben Stokes targeted his leg, and that eventually got the job done. Sai flicked one but failed to time it as England keeper Jamie Smith picked up a brilliant diving catch to send him packing.
He departed without opening his tally and became the first India batter in 15 years to register a duck in his debut Test innings. Wriddhiman Saha was the last batter who registered the unwanted record against South Africa in Nagpur. After that, R Ashwin and Umesh Yadav have done the same, but they weren’t recognised as batters.
Recognised batters to depart on duck in debut Test innings:
| Player | Year |
| Manohar Hardikar | 1958 |
| Gundappa Viswanath | 1969 |
| Eknath Solkar | 1969 |
| Kris Srikkanth | 1981 |
| Devang Gandhi | 1999 |
| Vijay Bharadwaj | 1999 |
| Ajay Ratra | 2002 |
| Parthiv Patel | 2002 |
| Wriddhiman Saha | 2010 |
| Sai Sudharsan | 2025 |
India were reduced to 92/2 in first session
India had a terrific start to their first session but losing two wickets just before lunch would hurt the visiting team. After Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli retired, newly appointed Shubman Gill took over the number four spot, while keeper-batter Rishabh Pant will feature at five, followed by Karun and Ravindra Jadeja.
The Indian batters would hope to capitalise on the good start and post a massive total on the board as batting is expected to get better in the following sessions. The focus will be on captain Gill, who averages only 14.66 in England.
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