KL Rahul Posts Emotional Message After Losing His Place In Playing Eleven

KL Rahul has not quite managed to live up to the expectations in his short One-Day International career so far. He began his career in the 50-over format with a sublime century against Zimbabwe but could not quite managed to replicate that performance thereafter. He failed to get going in the ODI series against England earlier this year and although he impressed in Tests matches that followed, he once again failed to justify his inclusion in the ODI team during the series against Sri Lanka.

He entered the five-match series after scoring 8 consecutive half-centuries in the longest format of the form and considering his form, the team tried him out in the middle order.  However, he failed miserably with the bat. He batted at Nos.3, 4 and 5 in the three innings he played in Sri Lanka and aggregated only 28 runs before being dropped from the team.

As a result, he was dropped from the team and his replacement Manish Pandey fully capitalised on the opportunity, scoring an unbeaten half-century and 36 in two ODIs before scoring a match-winning unbeaten 51 in the one-off T20I. Rahul was also not included in the team for the first ODI against Australia.

But despite finding himself in an unwanted situation, Rahul is only focusing on working hard. The right-handed batsman took to Twitter to express his feelings over the recent turn of events, writing “Work hard, Stay Humble and Trust the Process. ?.”

Meanwhile, captain Virat Kohli has thrown his support behind Rahul and has said that the Karnataka star needs to be backed.

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“I think, if you look to bat in the position that you bat in one format, in all the formats, then it can get very difficult for the team to find the right kind of balance [while] including that player. So I think players need to adapt to what the team requirement is more often. For example, I’ve opened in T20 cricket as well. So I would do that any day if there is a guy in the middle order who is going to strengthen [the team]. I should be flexible enough to do that. I think it’s up to the player to get versatile in a manner that he can take up different positions that the team requires him to do,” Kohli had said before the first match.

“It takes time, I am not saying it is easy. If you see Jinks [Ajinkya Rahane] as well – he has played in the middle order in the ODIs, he plays in the middle order in Test matches. He’s also opened a lot in ODIs as well. He also felt that he found it difficult to switch. Now we’re backing Jinks at the top of the order. So he knows his plans are clear. So, once you get that balance with giving that player more chances, then he gets more confident of his role in the team. Till then obviously, Manish [Pandey] is there as well, Kedar is there as well. So there’ll always be competition for a particular spot. KL is an outstanding talent. He’s proved himself in all formats. And he is someone that needs to be backed. Because we believe that he has the ability. Once he gets his role done, he’ll start winning us games. We’re very sure of that,” he had added.

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