KL Rahul’s inclusion in India’s squad for the Border Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) was questioned before he first batted for Australia, but since then he is the only Indian batsman with the quality of the Australian bowlers. This may not be reflected in the amount of runs Rahul scores, but it certainly reflects how he understands the situation of the Australian pacers and adjusts his technique accordingly.
at bagWhere most top-class Indian batsmen indulged in unnecessary prodding outside the off-stump to miss the ball or nick it, Rahul showed no such interest.
Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant and Rohit Sharma were all dismissed for slips or being caught behind by the wicketkeeper. However, a comparison graphic that appeared during the live broadcast of Day 4 showed how Rahul was doing against the scheme of the Australian Pacers, who tried to bowl differently from India’s two best batsmen, Rohit and Kohli.
Graphic 1: This shows that both Kohli and Rohit are looking to play the ball in front of the pads. This means they are going towards the ball, whereas Rahul is clearly more compact, meaning he plays closer to the body and below the eyes.
Graphics 2: This shows that Rahul is intercepting the ball or playing late. This means that Rohit and Kohli are letting the ball come to them earlier as their point of contact with the ball is far ahead. In fact, Kohli repeatedly rushes the furthest to catch the ball and falls behind.
Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar took a leaf out of Sachin Tendulkar’s book on Monday on Kohli’s catch-22 problem and said he should learn from the legend’s knock in the 2004 Sydney Test.
Coming into the Sydney Test, Tendulkar too was struggling with balls delivered outside his stumps and wisely stopped playing cover drives and scored most of his runs down the leg side. He scored 241 runs in that innings.
“He (Kohli) only has to look at his hero Sachin Tendulkar. The way he (Tendulkar) scored 241 runs in Sydney by maintaining patience and control in the offside game. He didn’t take any shot. Or at least because he tried to make a play in the cover (zone) and got sacked.” Gavaskar said in an interview with Star Sports.
We are going through a transition as a team: Jasprit Bumrah
However, Kohli played an exceptional knock in the opening Test in Perth and failed to make 100 runs in India’s second innings. His other four knocks in this BGT so far have been 5, 7, 11 and 3.
Rohit has been struggling since the Test series against New Zealand and Bangladesh at home before arriving in Australia after the first Test. Against Bangladesh, Rohit scored just 42 runs in 4 innings, while against New Zealand, he scored 91 runs in 6 innings.
Rohit scored two innings in Adelaide and one at the Gabba, scoring three, six and 10 after Rahul selflessly pushed himself into the middle order as he rediscovered his form as an opener alongside Yashasvi Jaiswal.
Rahul, on the other hand, looked very assured in four of his five knocks in this BGT, including two half-centuries (26, 77, 37, 7, 84).
