KL Rahul is going through a rough patch with the bat and his poor form in red-ball has raised questions about his place in the team. In fact, the 30-year-old was dropped from the playing XI in the third Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in favour of Shubman Gill. Many former cricketers have weighed in on KL Rahul’s dismal run in international cricket. Now former India opener Gautam Gambhir has opened up about Rahul’s downfall. While speaking on Sports Tak, Gambhir, who is also the mentor of Lucknow Super Giants IPL team, opined that getting dropped from the Indian T20I and Test sides should “hurt” the prolific batter. The southpaw suggested that getting dropped will be good for KL Rahul in the long run.
“These things happen to every cricketer. Name one cricketer who has scored runs with the same consistency from the start to the end. And these things are good for you. These things should hurt you. If it has hurt him then it is a great thing for us. When you see someone else play and you are running around as a 12th man with water bottles, it should hurt you,” Gautam Gambhir was quoted as saying on Sports Tak.
Gautam Gambhir also said that the upcoming season of the IPL is an opportunity for KL Rahul to find his mojo.
Gambhir added, “You have scored four-five hundreds in the Indian Premier League. But if you are not in the T20 side and not in the playing XI of the Test side, then you can look at IPL as an isolated tournament or look at it as an opportunity to reinvent yourself. Can I bat the way the team wants me to and score the way entire nation expects of me? Scoring more than 600 runs in an IPL season is not important. Score 400 but those should impact your team’s performance.”
KL Rahul has been touted as the future of the Indian team across all three formats of the game. But the Karnataka cricketer has not been able to play to his full potential in the last few months. Furthermore, he has even lost the vice-captaincy in Test cricket. In the absence of Rishabh Pant, Rahul has been roped in as a wicketkeeper-batter in ODIs. It remains to be seen how Rahul fares in the three-match ODI series against Australia starting March 17.
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