Jaiswal-Rathod Centuries Amid Rain and Injuries: India A's Batting Test Still Incomplete

Rain had already eaten more than 90 minutes of play, and India A were still 43 runs behind. Then two wickets fell in three balls — Sudharsan 11, Padikkal zero. Against the New Zealand A seamers, the Indian top order seemed to be slipping back into a familiar script. But what followed was the most important passage of this four-day match — Yashasvi Jaiswal's 155 and Yash Rathod's 100. A 247-run unbroken stand, and the match drawn.

The scorecard will suggest India A made a superb comeback in New Zealand conditions. But the scorecard does not show what was happening on the ground — New Zealand A's two frontline seamers, Sheat (side strain) and Lennox (hamstring), were unavailable to bowl in the second innings due to injury. This information is clearly recorded in the match report, and it defines the difficulty of this innings.

*Jaiswal's 155 is a form reset, not a form confirmation.* Before this, his scores on tour were 17, 5 and 0. A 155 in one innings and 22 runs across the previous three is an outlier at both ends. Test readiness is not decided by one innings but by sustained technical stability across innings. He reached his hundred off 119 balls, scored 47 off 33 balls against spinner Foxcroft and hit four sixes. That aggression in red-ball cricket is a deliberate approach — walking out of the crease on the very first ball, moving around the crease to disrupt Randell's length. This is not just success, it is a template the rest of the top order can adopt.

Rathod's century is a more solid signal than Jaiswal's, even if the headlines are going to Jaiswal. This is his 12th first-class century, and he had also scored a half-century in the previous match on this tour. Good performances in two consecutive matches, and 12 centuries in domestic cricket — that is a signal of sustainability, whereas Jaiswal's 155* is still a single-innings sample. In the 247-run stand, Rathod fed Jaiswal the strike, did not let go of his scoring shots, and according to the report his innings was 'pretty chanceless'. However, he should have been run out on 37 — a luck factor that must be included in any assessment.

The most important technical warning of this match is hidden in Sudharsan's leg-side trap. McKay had him caught at leg gully, and the report explicitly states that this pattern has been 'often' repeated in his brief Test career. This is not just one dismissal, it is a strategy that senior international fast bowlers will notice and repeat. Sudharsan's technique of settling at the crease and his method of escaping the leg side — both need work, otherwise this same bowling plan will trap him again and again at Test level.

First-innings scores of 346 and 424 indicate the pitch was good for batting, but the morning session was helping the seamers — traditional New Zealand conditions. In such a scenario, two wickets falling in three balls after 90 minutes of rain was not a technical verdict but a consequence of conditions. Padikkal's golden duck also falls into this category — technique cannot be assessed from one ball.

Mukesh Kumar (5-87) and Mohammed Siraj (4-118) took 9 of the 10 first-innings wickets. Siraj playing this match is itself a signal — this is not a demotion but workload management. Seeing a senior fast bowler bowling in an A tour indicates the board is using the A programme as a maintenance channel.

Two New Zealand A seamers suffering soft-tissue injuries in the same match raises a question — is workload management being handled properly at the start of the season? This question is also relevant for the Indian team because the purpose of an A tour is to test young players, and if the host team itself is weakened, the level of examination drops.

The biggest risk is drawing Test-readiness conclusions from this match. Jaiswal's 155* is real, but its difficulty is reduced — a rain-shortened match, an injury-hit bowling attack. Rathod's 12th century is more reliable, but one innings does not secure a place in the senior team. And Sudharsan's leg-side trap is the most under-priced signal — this is not just one dismissal, but a repeatable weakness.

In my WhatsApp group, whenever a young batter scores a century, by the next morning the 'next Sachin' message arrives. But if you look at the scorecard alongside the quality of the bowling attack, the picture changes. The tendency in Indian cricket media to overhype young talent is structural, and this report too goes in that direction — Jaiswal's century is in the headlines, Rathod's consistency is on the margins.

When the next Indian Test team is selected, do not decide by looking at 155* alone. Also look at who was bowling in that innings, how many balls were bowled by injured bowlers, and whether the same batter repeated the same technique in the next innings. The real value of an A tour is not in the score, but in the answers to these questions. And the answers will only come when we learn to read the story beyond the scorecard.