Dhruv Jurel selected in India’s Test team against England : Uttar Pradesh wicketkeeper batsman Dhruv Jurel will soon be seen flying to Hyderabad. Veteran cricketers like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, KL Rahul will be present with him in that flight. The flight that Dhruv is about to take now is not an ordinary flight. That flight will take him closer to his dreams, which he had been thinking about since childhood.
Dhruv Jurel selected in India’s Test team against England
Actually, Dhruv has been included in the Indian team for the first two matches of the five-Test series against England. Till a few months ago, he would not have even thought that he would enter Team India like this. This is a dream come true for this 22 year old player.
This is how Dhruv Jurel’s childhood passed.
This 22 year old player has done many big feats at a young age. He hails from Agra and his father was in the army, taking part in the Kargil war. Jurel was born in 2001 and was not even 10 years old when his father retired from the army as a Havildar.
At this time Dhruv Jurel was studying in Army School, Agra. His father wanted his son to become an officer in the army and serve the country like him. For this reason, Dhruv’s father Nem Singh Jurel asked his son to participate in sports related activities. When a sports camp started in school for two months, Dhruv came with two of his friends to participate in swimming.
Actually, in childhood, Dhruv had lied to his father that he was only learning swimming in school. When his father came to know that Dhruv had also enrolled for cricket coaching, he had to face tremendous anger from his father. When swimming classes were going on, Dhruv was seen playing cricket and hitting excellent shots.
Dhruv liked cricket very much and he left swimming and enrolled himself in cricket. His father also soon realized that his son was very passionate about cricket and then he allowed Dhruv to fulfill his dream. When Dhruv wanted a bat, his father took a loan of Rs 800 from his friends to get the bat.
Father wanted son to prepare for government job
Coming from a simple background, where finances were a big issue, Dhruv hated seeing his father saluting others. He worked hard on his cricket to ensure that his father never had to salute anyone one day. Dhruv has managed to do this.
When Dhruv grew up a little, his father wanted him to focus on getting a government job and asked Dhruv to stop playing cricket, but his son had made up his mind. His father was helpless due to financial problems at home.
Dhruv had told in an interview that, ‘I told my father that the cost of the kit would be around Rs 8,000 and he was shocked to hear the price and asked me to stop playing cricket.’ It was not common for his father, retired from the army, to buy a cricket kit without thinking anything. He also wanted his son to become an officer in the army. For this reason he was not buying the kit. In such a situation, Dhruv said that if he did not get the cricket kit, he would leave the house. In such a situation, his mother sold the gold chain and got the kit for her son.
Later Dhruv got support from his father
Seeing Dhruv’s interest and talent in cricket, his father also started supporting him. Dhruv has played Under-14 and Under-16 age group cricket for Uttar Pradesh. He was then selected for India’s under-19 team for the World Cup in 2020. From here Dhruv never looked back. He was also made the vice-captain of the country’s Under-19 team in 2020. His team lost to Bangladesh in the final of the Under-19 World Cup, but Dhruv won the Under-19 Asia Cup under his captaincy. In the beginning of his career, Dhruv used to bowl off spin, but his bowling was nothing special. In such a situation, he tried his hand at wicket-keeping and impressed everyone in this role. Along with this, apart from being a middle-order batsman, he also became a wicketkeeper.
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Dhruv Jurel came into discussion in IPL 2023
Dhruv made his Ranji Trophy debut for Uttar Pradesh against Vidarbha in 2022 and so far he has played 15 first-class matches, scoring 790 runs, including one century and five half-centuries. His outstanding score is 249 runs. Dhruv has also played 10 List-A and 23 T-20 matches. He was included in their team by Rajasthan Royals (RR) for Rs 20 lakh in the IPL 2022 mega auction.
However, he got his first chance in IPL 2023. Dhruv made his IPL debut as an impact player on 5 April 2023 against Punjab Kings in Guwahati. In his very first match, he played a quick inning of 32 runs in 15 balls. Since then he came into limelight. Dhruv has played 13 IPL matches so far, scoring 152 runs at a strike rate of 172.72 and Rajasthan has retained this explosive wicketkeeper batsman for IPL 2024.
It is a big deal to join the Indian team
Due to his good performance in first-class cricket, Dhruv also got a place in the India A team. He was a part of the India-A team that recently went on the South Africa tour. Dhruv scored 69 runs in one of the four-day matches and also took three catches. After this the selectors decided to give this young player a chance in the home series against England. He may not have been the team management’s first choice as a wicketkeeper in the first two Tests, but the experience of being in the senior Indian men’s dressing room.
Dhoni is considered an ideal
Dhruv also wants to captain the Indian team like Dhoni. He has expertise in trapping the opposition batsmen behind the wicket with patience and cleverness. At the same time, he considers AB de Villiers as his idol in batting. Jurel is an admirer of Virat Kohli in terms of fitness. After showing his talent in the IPL this year, he now has a chance to show his talent to the country as well. Under the tutelage of legendary batsmen like Rohit and Virat, 22-year-old Dhruv still has a lot of time to hone his talent.
Indian Test squad for the first two Tests against England: Rohit Sharma (captain), Jasprit Bumrah (vice-captain), Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), KS Bharat (wk), Dhruv Jurel. (Wicketkeeper), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Mukesh Kumar and Avesh Khan.
England team for the Test series against India: Ben Stokes (captain), Joe Root, Rehan Ahmed, James Anderson, Gus Atkinson, Jonny Bairstow, Shoaib Bashir, Brook, Jack Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ben Focus, Tom Hartley, Jack Leach, Ollie Pope, Ollie Robinson and Mark Wood.
India vs England test series schedule
- First Test: 25-29 January, Hyderabad
- Second Test: 2-6 February, Visakhapatnam
- Third Test: 15-19 February, Rajkot
- Fourth Test: 23-27 February, Ranchi
- Fifth Test: 7-11 March, Dharamshala
