Mayank Agarwal: Everything you need to know about the newest player in the Indian Test team
Mayank Agarwal is famous for his flamboyant style of batting, and needs no introduction. In the last couple of years, Agarwal has been one of the top performers in Indian domestic cricket in all the three formats.
The 27-year-old batsman hails from Bangalore, Karnataka, and is scaling new heights at the moment.
Agarwal is an alumnus of Bishop Cotton Boys' School, and attended Jain University in his later years. He played for the Indian U19 team in 2010 and made his IPL debut for Royal Challengers Bangalore a year after that. Agarwal has also played for Delhi Capitals and Pune Supergiants in IPL, and currently plays for Kings XI Punjab.
Agarwal had a poor 2018 season in the IPL, but compensated for that by scoring tons of runs for India A in England, New Zealand, Australia and in practice games against South Africa.
Agarwal will be making his debut in the Boxing Day Test against Australia. He will be the 295th player to represent India in Tests, and will be replacing his Karnataka teammate KL Rahul in the XI as an opener. He plays for Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) in the Indian domestic circuit.
Agarwal had fitness issues earlier in 2014-15 and was quite inconsistent with his batting, but he tackled all of that by working extra hard off the pitch. He ended up as the leading run-scorer in Ranji Trophy 2017-18 with 1160 runs in 8 matches, and scored a mammoth 723 runs in the Vijay Hazare Trophy that same year.
He also made the record for the highest number of runs in an entire domestic season, with 2141 runs under his belt across all the formats in the 2017-18 season.
Agarwal has so far scored 3599 runs from 78 innings with an average of 50 alongside 8 centuries and 20 fifty-plus scores in his first-class career. He also has impressive List-A records to his name, averaging nearly 49 at a strike rate of 100.
Agarwal smashed 304* runs against Maharashtra at MCA Stadium, Pune in a 2017 Ranji match, which is his highest first class score too. He has won many domestic championships with Karnataka, including Ranji Trophy, Vijay Hazare Trophy and Deodhar Trophy.
Agarwal has left no stone unturned in his bid to make it big at the international stage, and has been on the radar of the selectors for a while. He will be hoping to make full use of the opportunity in Melbourne, and score big to cement his spot in the side.
The Indian cricket team has named the playing XI for the third Test with Agarwal being the first opener and Hanuma Vihari to partner him. It will be interesting to see how the two new openers adjust to the playing conditions at the MCG against a potent bowling attack.
IN - Mayank Agarwal, Rohit Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja
OUT - Lokesh Rahul, Murali Vijay and Umesh Yadav
India's Playing XI for Boxing Day Test: Mayank Agarwal, Hanuma Vihari, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli (C), Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant (WK), Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah.