Unlike the Indian team members, KL Rahul requested the BCCI to send him early in England to acclimatise with the conditions and play for the A team against England Lions in the second unofficial Test. The right-hander repaid the faith with a brilliant 116 while opening the innings with Yashasvi Jaiswal, pushing Abhimanyu Easwaran at no.3.
With the Test retirements of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma last month, Rahul is the senior-most batter in the side going into the series against England. Rahul’s ton has given the Indian team management a healthy headache on how the Indian playing XI would look like.
Although Rahul’s hundred makes him one of the certainties to open the Indian batting with Jaiswal, India have two more options as far as the opening slot is concerned – Easwaran and Sai Sudarshan. Bengal’s Easwaran struck two fifty-plus scores against England Lions.
Former Australia opener Matthew Hayden felt Rahul will be best suited at no.4 instead of opening the batting. “I have just got one other issue here as well. KL Rahul, he will open. I am just going to make that call. My problem with that is I believe he is your best player in Test match cricket,” Hayden told Star Sports.
“He can be a like-for-like replacement of Virat Kohli, absolutely custom-made at No. 4,” added the burly left-hander who once dominated world cricket. The right-hander was one of India’s best batters while opening the innings in Australia during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy with 276 runs in 10 innings, including two fifty-plus scores.
However, Hayden is of the opinion that Rahul shouldn’t open the batting in England. “The reason why I don’t like him as an opening batter, and we saw this in Australia as well, he gets out 57% of the time caught behind, nicked off. So he looks so technically sound, how amazing is it, and then suddenly he is out,” the Australian reasoned.
KL Rahul’s Test records in England
On English soil, Rahul has played nine matches, scoring 614 runs at an average of 34.11, including two hundreds. The stylish right-hander scored 299 runs in five matches in 2018 series while his rest came three years later. His best of 149 came in 2018 at The Oval in the fifth Test.
