NEW DELHI: Having made his presence felt in the domestic circuit, wicketkeeper batter
Dhruv Jurel
has been rewarded with a maiden India call-up for the first two Tests of the five-match series against England.
He also earned accolades for his impressive performances for Rajasthan Royals in his maiden season at the IPL.
Rajasthan head coach
Kumar Sangakkara
, who witnessed Jurel's rise from close quarters, expressed happiness on his inclusion into the Test side and said he is an absolute match-winner in the T20 format.
"Very proud and happy because one of our key motivators and one of our key kind of performance indicators away from the IPL is producing players for India and we have produced quite a lot over the years and Dhruv being a new addition," Sangakkara told reporters.
"He's a fantastic young man, a really good player who has worked really hard to get where he has. And he fact that he's gone through our development camps and ended up in the Test side is fantastic.
He understands pressure. He came in last season in one of the most difficult positions and scored so many runs for us. He's an absolute match-winner in the short format," the former Sri Lanka skipper added.
The 22-year-old was a part of the India A squad that played two matches against their South African counterparts in December last year.
He had made a 69 in the second match at Benoni and more recently made a 63 for UP against Kerala in a first-round group game of the Ranji Trophy at Alappuzha.
Jurel, who had made his First-Class debut last year against Vidarbha, has so far made 790 runs from 15 matches at an average of 46 with a hundred and five fifties in the domestic circuit.
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