The Indian opener, KL Rahul played a crucial knock in the first T20I against West Indies as India won by six wickets, has insisted he is not worried about the World T20 next year and is right now focused only proving his worth in the team. On Friday evening, Rahul scored 62 off 40 deliveries in Hyderabad and became the joint third-fastest to score 1,000 T20I runs — reaching the milestone in 29 innings.
The Karnataka batsman has got an opportunity to open in the T20I series against West Indies as he came in the XI as a replacement of Shikhar Dhawan, who is recovering from a knee injury. The latter had been persisted within the opening slot despite his struggles with strike rate and the fact that he hasn’t managed a single fifty-plus score in his last 13 T20I innings.
On the other hand, Rahul has managed three half-centuries in seven innings in 2019, scoring at a brisk pace and thus pushing his case to feature as the frontline opener for the T20 World Cup slated to be held next year in Australia.
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However, the Karnataka batsman isn’t looking too far ahead. During the post-match presentation, Rahul said, “It’s a long way, honestly. I’ve got the opportunity to bat at the top of the order again after a couple of series. So (I’m) looking forward to just making the best use of it. Today was a good outing, a good hit in the middle and hopefully, I just continue the same thing and not worry about October next year, there’s are lots of games before that.”
Talking about the wicket on which both the teams managed to score more than 200 runs in their innings, Rahul felt that it wasn’t the easiest wicket to bat on. The chase was anchored by skipper Virat Kohli, who went past his highest scored in T20Is and scored an unbeaten 94 to take India across the line with eight balls to spare.
Talking about Virat said, Rahul said, “We kept the intent going and the plans were very clear that you have to hit boundaries. Fortunately, Virat carried for us and finished the game.”
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India and West Indies will now take on each other in the second T20I in Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday.
