Devdutt Padikkal Says India A Captaincy Will Further Boost His Batting

Devdutt Padikkal is relishing the opportunity to lead India A for the first time and believes the added responsibility of captaincy can help take his batting to another level when India A face Australia A in the upcoming four-day matches in Puducherry.

Padikkal has already gained valuable leadership experience with Karnataka. He took over as the team's Ranji Trophy captain from Mayank Agarwal during the 2025-26 season and immediately showed that the additional responsibility would not affect his batting.

In Karnataka's final league-stage match against Punjab in Mohali, Padikkal smashed an unbeaten 120 off just 85 balls in the fourth innings to help his team chase down 250 in only 28 overs. He followed that with a career-best 232 against Uttarakhand in the semi-final in Lucknow, earning Player-of-the-Match honours while leading the side.

Speaking after the Duleep Trophy final at Chepauk on Thursday, Padikkal said he is looking forward to bringing his domestic leadership experience into the India A setup.

"Definitely, it's a great opportunity to be the captain of India A side. I'm looking forward to it. I think leadership is something that I really enjoy doing, especially starting off with Karnataka last year. It was a great learning curve for me, so I'm really looking forward to carrying that experience to India A set-up as well."

Padikkal also believes captaincy complements his approach as a batter because his primary objective remains helping his team win.

"Captaincy is just an added responsibility to go out there and make sure that I'm helping the side. I've always played cricket that way. I've always wanted to make sure that the team wins. As a captain, that's your sole focus. You want to make the team win. That just helps my batting even further."

B Sai Sudharsan, whom Padikkal replaced during India's two-Test series in Sri Lanka, has returned to full fitness and will serve as his deputy for the Australia A series.

With competition for places in India's Test side intense, Padikkal said his focus remains on scoring runs rather than worrying about selection battles.

"I think there's always been tough competition for spots in Indian cricket. I think it's never really come down and it's always going to be the same. It's important that we don't focus too much on that and just continue to enjoy my batting. As long as I'm scoring runs, I'm happy."

Padikkal backs his back-foot approach

Padikkal has developed a distinctive method against spin, often playing even fuller deliveries off the back foot. Sai Sudharsan has also successfully employed a similar approach.

Padikkal does not consider the technique a weakness, saying it is something he has used throughout his career."I think that [playing off the back foot] comes naturally to me. I think that's a technical thing that some batsmen prefer to play more on the back foot. For me personally, I don't see it as a risk and it's part of my game."

The left-hander acknowledged that every batter has aspects of their technique that opponents can attempt to exploit, but believes adapting to those challenges is part of the game."There will be things in your game that you have to make sure that you are not letting them expose it. I think you have to keep working on it, keep trying and make sure that those small shortcomings that you may have... you have to make sure how you can adapt with it and manage that as well."

Padikkal's recent rise back into India's Test setup has been built on strong performances in domestic cricket. He scored centuries in Galle and Colombo before narrowly missing out on a third consecutive first-class hundred when he was dismissed for 62 by Mukesh Kumar in the Duleep Trophy final.

He also spent long periods in the slip cordon as East Zone accumulated more than 1,000 runs across their two innings before securing the Duleep Trophy title on the basis of their first-innings lead.

For Padikkal, the journey underlines the importance and intensity of India's domestic system."It takes a lot of hard work to go through the domestic grind. There's a lot of high-quality cricket going on in the domestic circuit. I think it's not always noticed, but you can see that."

He highlighted the demanding Ranji Trophy schedule, where teams play around 11 matches to reach the final, as evidence of the commitment required from domestic players
"You play almost 11 games a year in the Ranji Trophy to get to the finals. So, doing that is not very easy and it takes a lot of effort and a lot of commitment to what you're doing."

With the opportunity to lead India A now ahead of him, Padikkal hopes his domestic experience will help him continue his progress toward becoming a regular member of India's senior side.