KL Rahul managed to score 16 in the first innings against Bangladesh and was on an unbeaten 22 in the second when India declared their innings.
New Delhi: Former India head coach Ravi Shastri felt it’s high time for KL Rahul to pull up his socks to rediscover his lost form in Test cricket. The right-hander, whose last Test hundred came in South Africa earlier this year, managed to score 16 in the first innings against Bangladesh and was on an unbeaten 22 in the second when Rohit Sharma declared the Indian innings.
Shastri, who is commentating in this match, stated that Rahul must change his temperament to rediscover his golden touch as he has the potential to transform himself into a different player. “KL Rahul needs to realise that he has got much of talent,” Shastri said on-air on Saturday.
“The day he realises that and comes out with a mindset and thinking in that fashion. He will be a different player,” added Shastri, who was India’s head coach from 2017 to 2021. Echoing Shastri’s words, another former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar said Rahul’s issue is entirely temperamental.
“This has been the KL Rahul story. It’s amazing that he plays a brilliant innings at the Test level and the next two three innings it seems like he has got a pair in the last Test. Even when you saw him bat today, it almost seemed like an innings without purpose. That can happen, it happened to me in the second half of my career where everything was internal,” Manjrekar was quoted as saying to ESPNCricinfo.
Manjrekar also cited his own example while explaining the phase Rahul is going through. “I went in to bat just thinking about my technique and am I going to play the ball well, imagining a certain kind of delivery coming my way. “And I’ve got to play instead of going to your instinct as a batter which I think all the other Indian batters practice that is about getting runs. Even if you’re defending looking for ones and twos,” he said.
Manjrekar is concerned about Rahul’s average despite the latter a veteran of 50 Tests. The India batter has produced some big hundreds in his Test career so far but still averages just 34. “That is more a temperamental problem for KL Rahul that has plagued him for 50 Test matches because the number that he has. He’s got some brilliant hundreds but an average of 34.
“He’s got hundreds, not one or two, quite a few and in testing conditions but the average of 34 tells you about his temperament and that we got to look at it today as well,” he added.