My Coach Always Prepared Me For Test Match Cricket: KL Rahul

Indian wicketkeeper-batsman KL Rahul has undoubtedly cemented his spot in the limited-overs team. Before cricket came to a grinding halt, the Karnataka batsman’s display against Australia and in New Zealand flagged that the national team might have found a permanent replacement for MS Dhoni. The five-match T20I series in New Zealand witnessed KL Rahul bag the man of the series award.

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As far as the Test arena is concerned, KL Rahul is out of favour currently. In his last two-Test series, the right-handed batsman managed only 158 runs. The 2018-19 tour of Australia ended with 57 runs in three matches at 11.40, and the visit to West Indies last August finished with 101 runs in two fixtures. Having made his debut in 2014 in Melbourne, Rahul has so far played 36 Tests, managing 2006 runs at 34.58 with five centuries.

The boxing day Test turned out as a forgettable outing, having scored 3 and 1 in both the innings. KL Rahul revealed that his childhood coach always prepared him for Test cricket and asked him to keep a target of featuring in 100 Test matches. He went on to say that as a kid, he learned the whirlwind style of batting but the aspiration was only to play the longest version.

“Obviously, playing for your country no matter what format when you ask anybody in the team they will say they want to play in all the formats. Each format brings a different challenge and I have grown up with a Test match cricket mindset,” Rahul stated as quoted by India Today.

My coach always prepared me for Test match cricket and as I grew up I learnt how to hit the ball harder, hit fours and sixes play the scoop shots and all those stuffs but the dream was always to play Test cricket and my coach would always say ‘100 Test matches, 100 Test matches, you need to play that,” he added.

It’s not something which is in my hand: KL Rahul

The 28-year old added by saying that whenever an opportunity comes along, he would like to take it with both hands. As far as performing in Australia goes where KL Rahul failed once, the prospect of the same looks exciting according to him.

“So, whenever the opportunity comes I will enjoy it, like I said to you that it’s a blessing to play for your country and go specially to a place like Australia where I failed and I got dropped from the Test matches to go back there and play against them would be very exciting. It’s not something which is in my hand.” he added.

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