The veteran Indian wicket-keeper batter, Dinesh Karthik has opined that KL Rahul will need to amass a couple of tons in the upcoming order-Gavaskar trophy against Australia if he needs to fend off competition from Shubman Gill and retain his opening place. Rahul has been witnessing a rough patch in his career in Test cricket as he has only managed to score 137 runs from eight innings.

In the recently-concluded Test series against Bangladesh, the 30-year-old once again struggled with the bat and scored just 57 runs from the two matches. A lot of questions have been raised about Rahul’s form given that Gill has enjoyed a good run with the bat.

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With Rohit Sharma expected to make a comeback to the playing XI in the upcoming matches, the Indian opener’s place will be under serious scrutiny. During a recent chat on Cricbuzz, as quoted by Hindustan Times, Karthik also talked about Rahul’s stats in Test matches and said they were not acceptable for an opener who has played 40 Tests.

Elaborating the same, Dinesh Karthik said, “I would give KL those couple of Test matches, but if things don’t go KL Rahul’s way. The one thing that does go against him is the fact that he has played over 40 Tests and his average is just mid-30s. That is not acceptable for an opener. That is one of the lowest among Indian players for sure, who have played 35 Test matches.”

Dinesh Karthik also went on to say that if Rahul somehow falls short of scoring big runs against the Aussies in the Border-Gavaskar trophy, then he would have to make way for Gill in the team.

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The veteran gloveman elaborated, “That is something that he definitely needs to work on. That will be on his mind. If he wants to cement his place in the Test team, he needs to get a couple of hundreds against Australia. Otherwise, you can definitely see a change, with Shubman Gill doing so well.”