KL Rahul & the art of getting out
KL Rahul it is all in the mind. Someone who has scored hundreds in South Africa, England and Australia obviously has the potential. If he could come back from injury and keep wickets as well as he did in the 2023 World Cup, there is little doubt he has the ability. His problem is he is periodically low on confidence. Ravi Shastri and Virat Kohli (as coach and captain) were able to get the best out of him from time to time. Then, Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid did the same. Now, it is on Rohit and Gautam Gambhir to give him the confidence to step up in Australia,” that was how former India wicketkeeper and later chief selector MSK Prasad summed up KL Rahul.
This was just moments after Rahul was dismissed in the most bizarre manner in the second innings of the India A game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. There were no real alarms in the 43 balls he played and it seemed he was getting set for a long innings. That’s when a delivery from off spinner Corey Rocchiccioli, which would have missed leg stump, was actually padded by Rahul towards the off stump after he offered no shot. It was a freakish dismissal but with Rahul such things seem to happen far too often.
“He is more invested in being perfect than in scoring runs. It is a kind of obsession with him. The number of times he shadow bats, perfects his stance, practices getting behind the line of the ball, you know that he is trying to be as perfect as is humanly possible,” said one of the Duleep Trophy commentators.
There is nothing like perfect in sport. Steve
