Archan Mehta
Conventional wisdom says a tall batter facing a sharp turn should lean forward, use his long reach, and smother the ball at the pitch. Devdutt Padikkal, all 6 foot 3 inches of him, tore up that manual at Galle. On a sweltering opening day, the 26-year-old left-hander walked away with an unbeaten 131 off 178 balls against Sri Lanka, built not on tentative half-forward pushes but on deep crease play, wristy touch, and a calm, clear game plan. He only got his chance because regular No. 3 B. Sai Sudharsan broke down with a toe injury, but Padikkal made the opportunity entirely his own, steering India to 288 for 2 and reopening the debate around India’s middle-order pecking order.
The innings had one moment that summed up everything Padikkal is about. Facing left-arm spinner Prabath Jayasuriya on a surface turning sharply, he went from 51 to 55 with a stroke few batters his height would attempt: back foot planted outside off, hips cleared, bat coming down against the spin to beat both cover fielders. He had announced his intent from the first ball of the day, pulling it for four, then launching a straight six two balls later. Boundaries made up under half his runs, yet he kept the innings moving at better than 70 to the hundred through busy running and sharp placement, giving Sri Lanka’s spinners no rhythm at all.
None of this came easily. Padikkal’s cricket was shaped at Bengaluru’s Karnataka Institute of Cricket, where his coaches turned a promising off-spinner into a stylish top-order batter. His 2019-20 season remains the benchmark of his early career, when he topped run charts in both the Vijay Hazare and Syed Mushtaq Ali trophies for Karnataka. That form carried him to the IPL, where 473 runs for Royal Challengers Bengaluru in 2020 won him the Emerging Player award, ahead of names like Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers. A rapid IPL hundred and a clutch of List A centuries soon followed, and international recognition arrived with a T20I cap in 2021.
Then the setbacks piled up. A stubborn intestinal infection combined with COVID-19 cost him nearly 10 kilograms and much of his strength through 2022 and into 2023. A move to the middle order at Rajasthan Royals, a broken thumb, and a quiet IPL 2024 with Lucknow Super Giants added to the frustration. Padikkal responded by going back to basics, rebuilding his body and reworking his upright stance to give himself a sturdier defensive game suited to red-ball cricket.
The results were hard to ignore. He piled up 556 Ranji Trophy runs at nearly 93 in the 2023-24 season, added twin centuries against the England Lions, and struck 151 against Tamil Nadu, form that earned him Test cap No. 314 against England at Dharamsala in March 2024. A composed 65 on debut, though, was followed by five Tests on the sidelines. Recalled for the 2024-25 Perth Test against Australia, he made a painful start: a 23-ball duck against Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood, before a fighting 25 in the second innings. Fourteen more Tests passed without a look-in.
Rather than let the wait wear him down, Padikkal used it to dominate domestic cricket further. Leading Karnataka in the 2025-26 Ranji season, he scored a colossal 232 in the semifinal, then kept the run of form going with 120 not out, 67, and 94 for India A in Galle, plus a bruising 142 not out in the tour warm-up. His first-class average now sits above 44 from 54 matches, the record of a batter who had simply outgrown the domestic circuit.
Padikkal’s century hands India’s selectors a genuine headache. Sai Sudharsan, 24, averages 43 in first-class cricket, with two eighties in his last five Tests. Sudharsan reads length from a low crouch; Padikkal frees his arms off an upright stance built for pace and bounce. Dropping a centurion who tamed Galle’s turn would be brutal. But Padikkal has waited before and he knows how to strike when the door opens.
Archan Mehta is a writer dedicated to telling compelling stories about athletes, teams, and the world of cricket