The Indian side faced a disappointing defeat at the hands of Bangladesh in the 1st match of the ongoing 3-match ODI series. India was on the brink of victory, having reduced Bangladesh to 136/9 in the 187-run chase, however, Mehidy Hasan produced a sublime effort and took his side to victory with his match-winning knock of 38* off 39 deliveries.
The Rohit Sharma-led Men in Blue had a disappointing outing with as no batter excluding KL Rahul (73 off 70 balls) stepped up. Interestingly, KL Rahul who is usually seen opening the innings for the Indian cricket team batted at No.5 and looked at relative ease in the position. KL Rahul’s role in the playing XI was confirmed after Rishabh Pant was ruled out of the series due to medical reasons.
For the unversed, Rishabh Pant was a part of the squad for the ongoing ODI series, however, just moments before the first ODI started he was released from the squad due to medical reasons.
After the match, KL Rahul was asked about his middle-order role in the game, responding to which Rahul replied in a rather straightforward way. He said:
“We haven’t played a lot of ODIs in the past 6-7 months, but if you look at 2020-2021, I’ve kept wickets in the one-day format and I’ve batted at number four and five. It’s a role that the team has asked me to be ready for. When it comes to Rishabh (Pant), I’m not very aware to be honest. I just found out in the dressing room that he was being released, I don’t know what the reasons are, maybe the medical team will be in a better position to answer that question,”
“Whenever the team wants to play the role, I will play the role.”
Further talking about Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul said that the team members only came to know about the keeper’s unavailability when he entered the dressing room ahead of the match. He revealed:
“I didn’t see him in the dressing room and we asked, ‘what happened?’, and we found out that he was released. We had to focus on the game so we didn’t ask too many questions,”
