By all accounts it has been a horrendous start to Test cricket for KL Rahul, both with the bat and in the field
Sidharth Monga in Sydney06-Jan-20153:53
‘KL Rahul under pressure’
Eighty-first over of Australia’s innings…
The new ball has been taken. R Ashwin and Suresh Raina are the two slips, Ajinkya Rahane is at gully, and KL Rahul at backward point.Twenty-fourth over of Australia’s innings…
Rahul is fielding at point. He doesn’t move in as R Ashwin delivers. His preparation is sideways steps either way. David Warner looks to push at a shortish ball, which gets a little big on him. It sort of flies off the shoulder of the trunk that he carries for a bat. It flies towards point. Rahul is on his heels. He is late to move in. He dives forward. It is too late. He catches it on the half-volley. He looks down, doesn’t look up for a few seconds. This is not technically a drop, but Rahul knows he should have caught it.Eleven overs ago…
Rahul is alone, looking lost, standing next to the pitch, rubbing his hands on it, trying to get rid of the sweat. He doesn’t know where he has to field with R Ashwin being introduced. Suresh Raina moves into first slip. Rahul looks at captain Virat Kohli, who sends him to point.Minutes ago…
The first drinks break of the Test. Australia have galloped along to 0 for 72 in 13 overs. All the India players stand in a circle, eating chocolates, drinking their energy drinks and water. Trying to encourage each other. The extras are on the field. Rahul is not to be seen. Towards the end of the break he emerges from behind the drinks truck. He has been standing there alone. Now Shikhar Dhawan, whom he has replaced as opener and as second slip, offers him a drink. He doesn’t need it.Five overs ago…
Rahul is second at slip. Relaxed in his stance. Hands on his knees. Knees neither too wide nor too close. As the bowler enters his delivery stride, he prepares for a catch, elbows inches away from the knees, hands cupped for a catch. After the ball is delivered, his hands move low and then give as if plucking one inches from the ground. Except that the ball has been middled, and he is just visualising what might have been.Two balls ago…
Rahul is moving from second slip at one end to second slip at the other. Players are patting Mohammed Shami’s back, consoling him, encouraging him. Rahul is all alone. He stops by the wicket, and goes down on the pitch. Rubs his hands on it. It’s sweaty palms. Ajinkya Rahane jogs up to him, and gives him a low-five, as if to say, “It’s all right, happens to the best of us.”Rahane should know. He was nervous on debut himself, scratching around for 7 before playing a horrible shot. Even the usually judicious Harsha Bhogle tweeted doubts over Rahane’s Test credentials then.Two minutes ago…
Shami has been bowling well, perhaps the best he has this series. He has come on to bowl at 0 for 39 after five overs. He is not bowling short, he is not bowling on the pads. He has had an edge fly between the wide third slip and gully. He has asked questions of Chris Rogers. In his second over, he gets some extra bounce off a short-of-a-length delivery. Rogers is not quite behind it, and edges it to second slip.Rahul looks relaxed, he is ready, he is in a good position to take this calf high, but his hands don’t give. There is no time for him to absorb the impact. The ball hits the hands, and pops out. For what looks like an age Rahul doesn’t look up. He doesn’t want to know what looks he is getting from his team-mates. He has dropped Rogers, who has scored four fifties in four previous innings, on 19. On a road of a pitch. On a hot unforgiving day. After Australia have raced away. There aren’t going to be many more opportunities. Rogers will get out on 95, Warner on 101.Rahul is not an expressive one. Ravindra Jadeja once dropped Alastair Cook in Southampton, a series-turning event, and came up smiling. Rahul looks like the one who will let this eat him up inside.December 27…
Someone has found a KL Rahul tweet, and responded thusly: “WTF!! was that? brain freeze”Nearly two months ago…
The original tweet by Rahul, the day India’s Test squad for Australia is announced: “Words can’t explain how I feel at the moment. Very excited n looking forward to starting a new innings in my career.” The first response to his tweet: “All the best 🙂 I am pretty sure we have found a replacement for The Wall :)”
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Oh how Rahul must hate cricket at this time of his life. Carrying the weight of the name – Rahul, from Karnataka, touted as a proper technical Test batsman by all his coaches including the IPL one in Tom Moody, a name accidentally given to him because his father wanted to name him after Sunil Gavaskar’s son but got it wrong… Rahul went into the biggest stage of them all for his Test debut: a Boxing Day Test at MCG. An opener for his state, he was not slated to bat at No. 6.While India were in the field, he would have seen fellow debutant Joe Burns get a rousing reception when he came out to bat, when he scored his first run, when he hit his first boundary. He walked in at 4 for 409 on a flat drop-in pitch. He couldn’t have asked for a better situation to start his Test career in.Rahul had a personal battle to fight, though. He was doing what everyone has been saying he was equipped to do. He had scored 1158 runs in the first-class season leading up to his Test selection. But that’s all he had had. One bumper season. At 22 he was in the Test side. His namesake, Rahul Dravid, liked him. His IPL coach Moody liked him. His captain liked what he saw in the nets. Surely so many people can’t be wrong? But a Test debut can do strange things to people. That too a Test debut in an unfamiliar slot.Rahul was clearly nervous. He stepped out to Nathan Lyon, was beaten in the flight, and chipped one straight up. He was dropped. Then he tried a slog sweep. This time Rahul was caught, for 3 off 8. Gone for 1.In the second innings, with India needing to bat two sessions to save the Test, they sent Rahul up at No. 3. Two reasons for it: they wanted to send in Rahul closer to his natural batting slot, and wanted to save Cheteshwar Pujara should the need arise for a block-for-your-life session. Mitchell Johnson bowled one short, and brought a forward short leg in for the next. You could see Rahul had made his mind up. He saw four easy runs on the pull. He was going to go after the next ball that was pitched marginally short. He didn’t have to wait. The next one was short, but not short enough. He top-edged it. Shane Watson took an excellent catch over his shoulder, running back from first slip.Sweaty palms, hard hands, stiff at point, premeditated boundary shots, by all accounts it has been six disastrous days for Rahul as a Test cricketer. Four runs in two innings, two catches muffed. And we haven’t really had a chance to see how good or bad his game is. He never got himself into a position where he could play his game. What we see is just a bundle of nerves. Not a batsman, not a fielder. We don’t know how he would have gone had he got that first confident shot in. We don’t know if he – a slips fielder for his state side Karnataka – would have taken blinders had his hands given a little and that catch had stuck. Chances are, we might never.The beauty of cricket is, Rahul still has a chance. Two actually. On what is right now a flat pitch. He can still make amends. This evening, though, he could do with a hug and an arm around his shoulder. Somebody to beat into his head that life will go on regardless, when in fact it won’t quite.
