Playing his first Test match in over four years, Australia batter Peter Handscomb is their last remaining hope in the ongoing first innings of the first Test of Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2023 at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium.
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Coming in to bat at No. 6 right after his team lost two wickets off consecutive balls at the beginning of the afternoon session, Handscomb begun his first international innings since ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 under nervous circumstances.
Although wicket-keeper batter Alex Carey (36) provided a little respite in between, the pressure kept mounting on Handscomb as Australia lost four more wickets in the same session.
Known for his resolute batting capability especially against the spinners, the right-handed batter seldom erred whilst scoring at a strike rate of 42.02 on the 69 balls he faced before the tea break.
With Australia struggling at 174/8 in 60 overs with a full session remaining in the day, their team management would be hoping for Handscomb to extend the first-innings total as much as possible in the company of Nathan Lyon and Scott Boland.
Peter Handscomb IPL record
It is worth mentioning that this is Handscomb’s third tour of India as an Australian cricketer. However, the 31-year old player has also toured India once to take part in the cash-rich Indian Premier League.
Bought by Rising Pune Supergiants for INR 30 lakh during IPL 2016 mega auction, Handscomb had played only a couple of matches under former India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni. In his solitary IPL innings, Handscomb had scored 6 (12) before getting out to former Mumbai Indians spinner Harbhajan Singh at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium.
While Handscomb doesn’t have any IPL laurels to his name, he has made a Test comeback on the back of being the highest run-scorer in Sheffield Shield 2022-23. Leading Victoria, Handscomb scored 571 runs in eight innings at an average of 81.57 including two centuries and a half-century.
A dedicated first-class campaigner nowadays, Handscomb also plied his trade as a captain for Middlesex in the last two seasons of County Championship but with limited success.
