New Delhi, July 29 — When Saransh Jain got his maiden Test call-up for India’s upcoming two-game tour of Sri Lanka, those who have tracked the 33-year-old offspinner’s journey from Indore were neither shocked nor caught off-guard. For them, Jain’s call-up to the Test team was the reward of years of toil and refining his skill sets.

Jain, who bats left-handed and has been a regular in India ‘A’ team, has made 2223 runs and picked 188 wickets in 54 first-class outings. Having debuted in the Ranji Trophy back in 2014, he spent years on the periphery before having a breakthrough time in 2022, bagging 13 wickets and hitting a crucial knockout fifty to drive Madhya Pradesh to a historic maiden title.

But it was the 2025/26 season that truly kicked the door down: 518 runs at 57.55 alongside 30 wickets at 20.43, hot on the heels of a Player-of-the-Series run for Central Zone (16 wickets and two fifties in just two Duleep Trophy matches). He was a net bowler when India faced Afghanistan in New Chandigarh; now, he got his way into the Indian Test squad.

For former BCCI secretary and national selector Sanjay Jagdale, the news brought unreserved delight for a player he calls ‘a very low-profile and very hard-working boy.’ "He has been a very consistent performer for MP - constantly improving, working very hard on his fitness and other things also.

"He literally forced his entry into the Indian team, although it is a bit late. But even then, he has been very consistent. It is not one or two seasons - if you look back, every year after year, he has been very consistent with both bat and ball," he told IANS.

Jagdale recalled even at the junior level, Jain’s heart was in excelling in the longer format. "As I said earlier, he kept on improving. The best thing is, he was not targeting white-ball only, although he is good at both things. But he is a very good red-ball player and there is no doubt about it - both with ball and bat."

Jagdale added Jain can bowl on any type of wicket and expects him to ‘settle down quickly in the Test team.’ "Very accurate, very terrific self-belief and he has a lot of variations. He has constantly improved a lot as a bowler. He reads the situation very well and adapts according to it quickly, and that is his strength."

Sunil Dholpure, MP men's Under-19 head coach, grew up with Jain at Vijay Club in Indore, where his father, Subodh Jain, who himself played for Madhya Pradesh as an off-spinner, coached them. The club is on the verge of having its second player to play Tests for India after Rajat Patidar featured in the home series against England in 2024.

Apart from Subodh, coaches Sunil Dholpure and Amal Kokje, who played for India U17 and U19 teams, gave all trainees guidelines to succeed in the game. “His father gets more credit for what he has done for Saransh. He didn't pay much attention to Saransh because his focus was on his elder brother, Sunny, who later left the sport for studies.

“Saransh was chulbula (cheerful) and thoda masti (a bit of fun) type. He didn't pay much attention and wasn't sincere initially. But there was a different thing about him - as he grew up, he became sincere. He started paying attention to cricket and became a good all-rounder," he said to IANS.

Subodh’s sacrifices behind that transformation were significant too. "When his father started coaching, the club rose to be at the top of the Indore division. We worked so hard to get there. His father had a car and he would drive both boys to the club. He received a lot of notices from the job he had in the bank, but he was so interested in cricket that he used to coach us instead of going to work."

When space at the ground wasn't enough, Subodh converted their rooftop at home into a mini ground. "To give Saransh more practice time, he constructed a pitch on his rooftop at home. He had a jaali covering the roof and Saransh used to practice on it.

“As a young boy, he was very fond of cricket. So his father used to cover the roof with a net and Saransh used to do a lot of batting and bowling there. He used to do a lot of individual work. He used to come to the ground less, but would do regular practice at the rooftop nets.”

Dholpure also singled out current MP head coach Chandrakant Pandit's role in Jain's rise from 2022. "Since the time he has come here, he’s been honest, exhibited a long-term vision and very transparent in knowing that this player can do well. I feel Saransh didn't get so many chances that he has got now and under Chandrakant Pandit sir, he played so many games that I feel he also deserves some credit in getting him into the Test team."

Given Sri Lanka's left-handed heavy batting order, Dholpure, who made Jain the captain of Jabalpur Lions franchise when they won the MPL T20 league for the first time, backed him to make an immediate impact if picked for the first Test starting on August 15. "I feel that 99 percent Saransh will play well on his debut. There is no off-break bowler who can bowl like him right now in red-ball cricket.

"There isn't any step in cricket where Saransh hasn't come on top of it or struggled to get out of it. Whether it is local cricket, division cricket, district cricket, U19, U23, India ‘A’ and Ranji Trophy, Saransh has gone through all of it. He’s down to earth and has worked hard from the bottom to rise to the top of the table."

When Pandit, the former India wicketkeeper-batter, joined the MP set-up in 2020, he found Jain in and out of the playing eleven. It’s evident from him playing only eight Ranji Trophy games from 2014 to 2019, with fellow off-spin bowling all-rounder Jalaj Saxena being the lead spinner.

"I thought that he's got some different ability as a genuine off-spinner who can bat," Pandit said to IANS, adding that backing that judgment meant dropping a more experienced bowler – ‘a little harsh call’ - to make room for him.

What impressed Pandit was not just skill, but curiosity. "He's a very good student of the game and the reason behind it is I have always seen him during the games, he wants to know why this field setting has been done. He will try and find out from me."

Early on, Jain confided in Pandit about his own anxieties on his place in the side. "He obviously said to me, 'Sir, I've not been getting enough opportunities and I'm not so confident because I don't know what next game I'm going to play or not.' So, obviously that security, I had to give him."

That security led to one of Jain's more unusual trademarks - bowling round the wicket from his very first ball, something Pandit suggested and he initially resisted. "With the high-arm action, he has a very good rotation on the ball. So, with that rotation, the ball gets drifted away from the batters. Also, it dips down in front of the batters and I remember after seeing this kind of his skill, I suggested that he bowl from round the wicket.

“He said, 'If I bowl from round the wicket, I will not get lbw.' I reply, 'That is not the only way for getting a wicket. You can get the batsman out via caught behind, bowled, lbw, or caught at short leg, silly point and slip.’ Now, today, if you see, most of the off-spinners try to imitate him in coming round the wicket. The drift he gets is because he's got a good rotation on the ball and is not a flat trajectory bowler - he likes to give air to the ball.”

Pandit was also unwilling to box Jain in as a bowler who can only be good in dismissing left-handed batters. "I'm sure that not only left-hander, but he can bowl well against right-handers as well. He's got a good outgoing ball as well and that helps in getting the best out of him.

"He told me two years back that, ‘I would not like to be a net bowler for anyone in the IPL.’ He added that I want to be a part of the Indian Test team. So, that made me very happy when that day he told me this. To play in a red-ball game, it's entirely a different kind of satisfaction because that is why you find players who have hardly played 100 Test matches.”

Pandit also revealed Jain called him around 10 or 10:30 am, after he was named in the Test squad. “I don't want to take credit away from him. It is our duty as a coach to guide him. To get that acceptance level for what he has, is the best part for me. He always communicates with me, whether it is off-season, domestic season going on or even when he’s at the CoE.

"His relation with me is more than a player-coach relationship - it's something else and that maybe is probably due to the kind of confidence and security he got from me. I gave a simple suggestion to him - to carry on what he’s been doing in domestic cricket. Like, ‘The way you've been bowling, rather than thinking that you're representing India and probably playing against any other country, focus on your own skills that you have developed.”

Jain's selection is also down to circumstances too - Washington Sundar's hamstring injury ruled him out of the first Test, and Sri Lanka's left-hand-heavy top order made a specialist offspinner an attractive option. Jain had shown glimpses of what he can do earlier this month when he hit an unbeaten 70 and took six wickets in the second four-day game against Sri Lanka ‘A’ in Galle, the venue for the opening Test.

India are expected to field three spinners on spin-friendly Sri Lankan pitches, with Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav all but certain to start, leaving Jain to compete with Manav Suthar, who was impressive on his debut against Afghanistan, for the final spot.

Should he take the field in Galle, Jain, who doesn’t have an IPL contract, will become the first Indian to debut in Tests past the age of 33 since Robin Singh in 1998. He also attended a five-day camp conducted by former India offspinner Harbhajan Singh at the BCCI Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Bengaluru earlier this year, which also sharpened his red-ball skillsets.

As Jain became the sixth cricketer from Indore to earn an India Test team call-up, Subodh, a mouth cancer survivor who once urged him to keep playing through a handwritten note in 2014, summed up a wait of nearly 12 years on his WhatsApp status: “Mera sapna tha, woh poora hua” (My dream has come true).

For everyone who watched Jain go through the grind – of playing division games, bowling relentlessly on the roof-top, being in a dressing room where he once wasn't sure of his place, and showing up when it mattered the most - it is a line that could just as easily have come from the man himself.

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