More than once, the ball off the outside edge of his bat flew out of fielders’ reach.
Some misfields raised his boundary count. A couple of off-drives and one cover drive from the left-hander had the crowd at the HPCA Stadium here at its feet. A straight six brought up his 50 on Test debut. In short, Devdutt Padikkal’s knock had a touch of everything from being fortuitous to fantastic.
Riding on the confidence of scoring 556 runs for Karnataka in the current Ranji Trophy season, not to forget his 191 runs, including a century, from three innings for India-A against England Lions earlier this year, Padikkal displayed style and elegance on the biggest stage on Friday.
