KL Rahul opened the batting for India in the absence of Rohit Sharma in the Perth Test and played a steady knock in the second innings as well. However, with Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill’s return, he is likely to come down the order. However, the Adelaide Test will be his first outing in a pink ball day-night Test as well.

“This will be my first pink ball Test match so I don’t have as much experience as some of the other players who’ve played. For us it is just about speaking to the guys who played and finding out about what were the things they found hard… if there were any changes that they made,” KL Rahul said. “For me, it’s exciting because it’s my first pink ball game. So I’m going in with a clean slate and I’ll go there and see what really happens. And try and face up to whatever comes my way.”

However, Team India have spent the long gap between the first two Tests to prepare the pink ball. This was the same fixture in the 2020-21 tour where India were bowled out for only 36 runs. They are now up against a strong pace attack proficient in these conditions and hungry for series win as well.

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“In whatever little we’ve trained and played in the practice game, I felt like it was just a little different to the red ball in terms of how well you see the ball and how well you pick up the ball from the bowler’s hand. That’s been a bit of a challenge but we’ve got a bit of time, we’ve been training hard and hopefully by the time the game starts we’ll have had enough practice sessions and gotten used to what the pink ball does,” KL Rahul said.

“These [last] few days have only been about understanding how the ball reacts and how easy or hard it is to play against the pink ball. If you look at all the games that have been played with the pink ball, it hasn’t really lasted a long time. So that tells you that there will be a lot of help for the fast bowlers, and there will be a lot of seam movement. That’s something that we faced even in the nets. That happened even in Perth on Day One. There was a lot of seam movement and I’m sure that will be the same. But it was just a bit different to pick up the pink ball off the hand and it wasn’t as easy as facing up against a white or a red ball. So that’s something that we’ll have to get over and get used to,” he further added.

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“Whether it’s facing up against bowlers or just someone throwing balls at you, it’s just getting used to seeing the ball off someone’s hand. And I feel like that’s step one for a batter. If you can pick that, then you give yourself the best chance to react and be in good positions. So yeah, that’s been something that all batters have been speaking about and trying to play a lot more balls so that you get used to it,” he again shared.

While the bowlers could throw a challenge in the direction of the batters, the pink ball is also tough on the fielders, especially catchers in the slip cordon as well.

“The ball seems a bit harder than the red ball. While fielding as well, you can feel it hitting your hand a lot quicker and a lot harder. Same with batting, it just seems to get to you much quicker than the red ball. There’s a seam around a little bit more than the red ball. So yeah, that’s the challenge we’re looking forward to,” KL Rahul concluded.