Veteran commentator Aakash Chopra said that Team India have a big question to answer in choosing between KL Rahul and Sarfaraz Khan for the second Test against New Zealand. He also added that Rahul, who has been playing at the No. 6 position, doesn’t have a great overall record in Tests. However, the second game of the three-match series is slated to play in Pune on Thursday, October 24.
In a video shared on his YouTube channel ‘Aakash Chopra,’ he said, “This Indian team have followed a philosophy that if the original choice player becomes fit and available, he will return and whoever has played in his place will go out. Secondly, when there was a question before the first Test that who would go at No. 3, the captain and coach said they were feeling very comfortable with playing Rahul at six and they didn’t want to move him.”
“It seems like they were thinking that it’s a makeshift. Now that Sarfaraz has scored a century and Rahul has failed in the two innings, a big question has come. I was seeing KL Rahul’s numbers. The numbers are not that good. An average of 33 in 53 matches is not great,” Chopra further added.
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In the same video, Aakash Chopra also shared that KL Rahul’s numbers in his last 10 Tests are worse than his overall record as well.
“The last 10 matches could actually make or break because he (Rahul) has played 17 innings in them, scored 434 runs, which includes one century which if I remember correctly came in Centurion against South Africa, and the average is just 27. Begs a question that what would happen,” he observed.
“It was probably easier to drop Karun Nair because there was a gap of a series in between. You also made Sarfaraz and Dhruv Jurel sit out because there was a lot of time in between. When someone has done well in the last match and your team has lost, and although KL Rahul probably deserves to play one more match, an average of 27 in the last 10 matches, you may say that you are running out of patience,” Aakash Chopra concluded.
