Dhruv Chand Jurel (born 21 January 2001) is an Indian international cricketer. He is a right-handed batter and

wicket-keeper The wicket-keeper in the sport of cricket is the player on the fielding side who stands behind the wicket or stumps being watchful of the batsman and ready to take a catch, stump the batsman out and run out a batsman when occasion arises. Th ...

. He plays for

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...

in domestic cricket and for

Rajasthan Royals Rajasthan Royals (often abbreviated as RR) are a franchise cricket team based in Jaipur, Rajasthan, that plays in the Indian Premier League (IPL). Founded in 2008 as one of the initial eight IPL franchises, the team is based at the Sawai Ma ...

in the Indian Premier League (IPL).

Early life and domestic career

Jurel was born in a

Jat The Jat people ((), ()) are a traditionally agricultural community in Northern India and Pakistan. Originally pastoralists in the lower Indus river-valley of Sindh, Jats migrated north into the Punjab region in late medieval times, and subse ...

family in

Agra Agra (, ) is a city on the banks of the Yamuna river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, about south-east of the national capital New Delhi and 330 km west of the state capital Lucknow. With a population of roughly 1.6 million, Agra is ...

on 21 January 2001. His father served the

Indian army The Indian Army is the land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), who is a four- ...

and is a

Kargil war The Kargil War, also known as the Kargil conflict, was fought between India and Pakistan from May to July 1999 in the Kargil district of Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere along the Line of Control (LoC). In India, the conflict is also referr ...

veteran. At the age of five, he had to have plastic surgery when his left leg was trapped under a bus tyre. Dhruv Jurel attributes his selection to the Indian Test team to the sacrifices of his parents, highlighting his father's, a Kargil war veteran, initial reluctance due to financial constraints. When he was 14, his dad took out a loan to buy him a 2000

rupee Rupee is the common name for the currencies of India, Mauritius, Nepal, Pakistan, Seychelles, and Sri Lanka, and of former currencies of Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates (as the Gulf rupee), British East Africa, B ...

(£20) Kashmir willow bat, and his mother pawned her only gold necklace to buy a kit bag. He started playing cricket during a summer camp in his school. Over there, he saw some children playing

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

and it developed his interest in the game. He then left his home in Agra and went to train at a cricket academy in Noida, on Delhi’s outskirts. He played youth cricket for

's U-14, U-16 and U-19 teams. Jurel made his

Twenty20 Twenty20 (T20) is a shortened game format of cricket. At the professional level, it was introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2003 for the inter-county competition. In a Twenty20 game, the two teams have a single innin ...

debut on 10 January 2021 for

in the

2020–21 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2020–21 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy was the thirteenth edition of Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, a Twenty20 competition that was played in India. It started on 10 January 2021, with the final taking place on 31 January 2021. Karnataka were the defending ...

. Prior to his T20 debut, he was named as the vice-captain of India's squad for the

2020 Under-19 Cricket World Cup The 2020 ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup was an international limited-overs cricket tournament that was held in South Africa from 17 January to 9 February 2020. It was the thirteenth edition of the Under-19 Cricket World Cup, and the second to be ...

. In February 2022, he was bought by the

in the

auction An auction is usually a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from the lowest bidder. Some exceptions to this definition ex ...

for the

2022 Indian Premier League The 2022 Indian Premier League, also known as IPL 15 or for sponsorship reasons, Tata IPL 2022, was the fifteenth season of the Indian Premier League (IPL), a professional Twenty20 cricket league established by the Board of Control for Cricke ...

tournament. He made his first-class debut on 17 February 2022, for Uttar Pradesh in the

2021–22 Ranji Trophy The 2021–22 Ranji Trophy, is scheduled to be the 87th season of the Ranji Trophy, the premier first-class cricket tournament in India. The tournament will be split into two phases, with the league stage being played from 17 February to 15 Marc ...

. Jurel made his debut for Rajasthan Royals against Punjab Kings at Guwahati on 5 April 2023, hitting 32*(15). This performance cemented Jurel's place in the side. He made his

List A List A cricket is a classification of the limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competitions in which the numbe ...

debut on 14 July 2023, for

India A The India A cricket team is a national cricket team representing India. It is the second-tier of Indian international cricket, below the full India national cricket team. The team is currently captained by Priyank Panchal in first-class cricket a ...

against United Arab Emirates A, in the 2023 ACC Emerging Teams Asia Cup.

International career

International debut (2024-present)

In January 2024, he earned his maiden Indian call-up for first two tests vs England. On 15 February 2024, Dhruv Jurel made his

Test Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to: * Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities Arts and entertainment * ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film * ''Test'' (2014 film), ...

Debut for

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

in the third test against

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

in Rajkot. In his maiden test innings, he scored 46 off 104 balls, but did not get a chance to bat in the second innings, as India declared at 430/4 after lunch on day four. In the fourth test against

Ranchi Ranchi (, ) is the capital of the Indian state of Jharkhand. Ranchi was the centre of the Jharkhand movement, which called for a separate state for the tribal regions of South Bihar, northern Odisha, western West Bengal and the eastern area ...

, Jurel scored a crucial 90 runs off 149 balls in the first innings and kept India in the game as wickets fell around him and England took control. He turned out to be the highest run scorer in the innings for

. In the second innings, he stopped a collapse of the Indian batting side and stitched up a crucial 72 run partnership with

Shubman Gill Shubman Gill (born 8 September 1999) is an Indian international cricketer who plays for Punjab in domestic cricket as a right-handed opening batsman. He was the vice-captain of the India U-19 team for 2018 Under-19 Cricket World Cup. He got awar ...

to steer India to victory with a gritty 39* run stand from 77 balls. In his second

test Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to: * Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities Arts and entertainment * ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film * ''Test'' (2014 film), ...

itself Jurel was awarded as

player of the match In team sport, a player of the match or man of the match or woman of the match award is often given to the most outstanding player in a particular match. This can be a player from either team, although the player is generally chosen from the winn ...

for his cruical knocks in both the innings which helped

to register victory over

in the match taking an unassailable lead of 3-1 in the 5 match series.

References

External links

* 2001 births Living people Indian cricketers Uttar Pradesh cricketers Sportspeople from Agra Cricketers from Uttar Pradesh India Test cricketers Rajasthan Royals cricketers {{India-cricket-bio-2000s-stub