Sai Sudharsan slammed 49-ball 80 against Mumbai Indians (MI) in the IPL 2025 Eliminator at Mullanpur on Friday (May 30) but Gujarat Titans (GT) still fell 20 runs short during the 229-run chase.

Now, the southpaw, who amassed 759 runs in this season of the IPL, will shift his focus to the England tour, where India are scheduled to five Test matches.

Sudharsan earned his maiden call-up to the Indian Test squad last month, and he is now keen to make a mark in English conditions.

“I think I have played seven games in county cricket, so it gave me a great experience to be honest, it improved my batting multiple folds in terms of technique and in terms of basics too, it told me basics is the most important thing in batting,” Sudharsan said after the match.

“So, I think it should help me and I will focus more on what I learnt and I will try and be aware and create those awareness before going into the series,” he added.

Sudharsan, who played county cricket for Surrey over the past couple of seasons, was expected to feature in the second India A versus England Lions clash in Northampton from June 6, but is not sure if that is a possibility. The Test squad will depart for UK on June 6.

After playing two months of IPL cricket, the left-hander admitted that it would be a challenge to make adjustments with the first Test scheduled for June 20 in Leeds.

“Definitely, after a long three months of white-ball tournament, certain things would have changed in your batting. I think focusing more on basics and bringing back those to red ball cricket will take some time, we will have some good time before the series starts,” Sudharsan stated.

“In our mind, we were planning only to leave on the 4th from IPL, so we were not thinking about when to leave for India A or the Test team, but if that was the plan the Test team would have left on 6th, but now we will have to have a conversation and see how it goes,” he further remarked.

(With agency inputs)