As Surrey’s director of cricket, Alec Stewart closely watched Sai Sudharsan hone his skills in English conditions. The Tamil Nadu batter represented the Brown Caps during the 2023 and 2024 seasons. Stewart exposed how the southpaw would carry Dukes balls with him to practice back home to make sure that he was ready if a call-up opportunity arose for India. Sudharsan will get his opportunity to demonstrate how efficient the practice had been for him as he is included in India's 18-man team, which faces England in the five-match Test series beginning on June 20. Here is what Stewart was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo "When he's gone back home, he's taken some of our Dukes cricket balls back with him. I didn't charge him for them and just let him have them. But, no he had that forward-thinking [mindset] and trained with those balls, so that when he comes back to us, or hopefully [is] picked for India on tour, he'll have had nice practice against the Dukes cricket ball as well,” Former England wicket-keeper batter heaped praise on Sudharsan, praising his late play around the ball, which can hold him in good stead in English conditions. Also Read | Will BCCI Ban RCB from IPL 2026? Here's the Update "He plays the ball late, and that's the most important thing here. If you go too hard and get too far out in front of yourself, when the ball seams, you're not in control, then your bat can get outside of your eyeline, whereas he plays it under his eyeline, plays it under his eyes, and plays it late. And even if he does nick it a little bit, like Kane Williamson, for example - you can nick it, but it still falls short of slip and that again is a real attribute of Sai's,” he added. Sudharsan has played three ODIs and one T20I till date. But he has never been called into the Indian Test team before. He has just won the Orange Cap in IPL 2025 and will be full of confidence heading into the Tests. The 23-year-old has played 29 first-class matches till date, aggregating 1957 runs at an average of 39.93.