Rinku was rested from the second and third game of the series due to back spasms and India's assistant coach Ryan Ten Doeschate confirmed that the Aligarh dasher is good to go on Friday.
"Rinku is fit. He played the first game, hurt himself and missed the next two. But I would imagine Rinku comes back in as soon as he's proper fit. He batted the other night and I think he'll be ready to go tomorrow," Ten Doeschate said during the pre-match press conference.
On the day, Rinku was seen trying the falling reverse lap scoop and reverse pull by using the pace off Ravi Bishnoi's googlies, a style that reminds of Rishabh Pant's audacious stroke-making. He batted extensively against Bishnoi and India's flavour of T20 season Varun Chakravarthy.
He also switched nets and looked comfortable against Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Shami and Harshit Rana.
In fact, he batted from start to finish during the net session, finishing by taking throwdowns from Raghavendra and Abhishek Nayar.
India head coach Gautam Gambhir's philosophy of having at least eight batters in T20 cricket is sacrosanct and it is unlikely to change any time in near future, indicated his trusted lieutenant Ten Doeschate.
"You could argue that we don't want Dhruv Jurel batting at number 8. But I also think if you look at the blueprint of any of Gambhir's teams that he has coached since he's been coaching T20 cricket, it is a big part of how he likes to set up," Ten Doeschate said, explaining the rationale behind the strategy.
Jurel has scored 4 and 2 in second and third T20Is and is set to be dropped. However what raised eyebrows was the logic of sending Jurel at No. 8 just for maintaining the left-right combination in the middle.
"Particularly the other night, like I said, with Dhruv coming in at 8, I don't think we got to see the best of him. But we do believe that it's a big part of strategy in these games.
"Again, going back to my point, we want to give guys a long enough opportunity to show how good they are because we believe in the medium to long term, guys will show how good they are."
© 2025