India’s young opening batsman KL Rahul made yet another error in judgement when he left an in-swinger by Nuwan Pradeep in the second innings of the third Test of Cricbuzz Cup 2015, that shattered the stumps. Rahul, who has been trusted to open the innings in the absence of Murali Vijay and Shikhar Dhawan, got out in the similar fashion in the first innings off Dhammika Prasad’s bowling. Rahul has already two scored 2 Test hundreds in his young career, but he has also had too many single-digit scores which might go against his selection for the next series.
VIDEO: KL Rahul departs in the similar fashion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHB7K1gVqsg
After a failure in the first innings, this was a very important knock for Rahul as India’s first-choice openers Shikhar Dhawan and Murali Vijay will be back for the next series and Rahul needed a solid knock to push the selectors for a place in the playing XI. Pujara’s marathon hundred in the first innings has made him a very strong contender for the No. 3 spot and this just might result in KL Rahul sitting on the bench for the next Test match.
Rahul has showed a lot of promise in his short career so far, but he needs to step-up his game and make quick adjustments as there’s not much scoop for failures with too many players fighting for the same spot. Rahul also received a lot of criticism from the former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar during the post match show. Gavaskar said that it is very important to learn from previous mistakes and keep adding more dimensions to your game. The similar nature of Rahul’s dismissal in both the innings has raised questions regarding his technique and he will have to go back to the nets and work hard on this aspect of his game. Gavaskar also said that Rahul doesn’t know where his off-stump is and he needs to fix this problem really fast if he wants to keep playing Test cricket for India.
