‘I will take the 86’ – KL Rahul on missing century against England in first Test match

KL Rahul recently reflected on his performance during the first innings of the first test match against England on England’s tour of India. England won the toss and chose to bat as the Indian bowlers showed their utmost brilliance at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad. Indian batters Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja played spectacular knocks to give India a lead of 190 runs. 

KL Rahul scored 86 runs off 123 balls and missed yet another century by 14 after scoring his previous ton at the Centurion against South Africa in the first test match against the Proteas. While talking about his missed century KL Rahul didn’t feel any regrets and talked about the happiness he got with scoring the 86 as he could have been dismissed for a duck. 

KL Rahul on getting opportunities to score runs for India

After the end of day two of the first test match, KL Rahul said, “I could have got out on zero, so I will take the 86. Maybe tomorrow I’ll turn up and feel I missed out on a century. But today, I enjoyed being out in the middle. We watched England play yesterday and I felt like it wasn’t a wicket where you could wait for the loose balls to come, you had to create some opportunities and try to put the bowlers off their line and length. I was looking for opportunities to score runs. I had a few shots in mind and was prepared to take my chances if the bowlers bowled there.”

While analysing KL Rahul’s recent performances, former cricketer Zaheer Khan called the latest form of the wicket-keeper batter a 2.0 version of him. Khan said, “If we look at Rahul’s career, he has had a lot of injury concerns. There have been times when he has been injured while hitting peak form and he hasn’t been able to capitalise on this form, something you require in international cricket. But looking at the recent past, with the successful World Cup campaign and the SA series, we can say this is a 2.0 version of Rahul.”