Former Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar criticized KL Rahul’s lack of purpose and intent in his knock on Day 1 of the opening Test against Bangladesh in Chennai as well. He returned to the Indian Test team after missing the final four matches of the home series against England – the last time Team India played a red-ball game as well. However, Rahul came into bat at No.6 and couldn’t manage a huge score.
Speaking on ESPN Cricinfo after the day’s play, Manjrekar said, “Completely understandable that they went for KL Rahul, It was just about experience, class, and recent form – the century in South Africa and an 80 in the only Test he played against England. But this is KL Rahul’s story, It is amazing that he plays a brilliant innings at the Test level and the next two to three innings, it seems like he has got a pair in the last Test. Even when you saw him bat today, it almost seemed an innings without purpose.”
“And that can happen. It happened to me in the second half of my career when everything was internalized and I went in to bat just thinking about my technique and if I was going to play this ball well, imagining a certain kind of delivery coming in and I have to play it properly, instead of going to your instinct as a batter which I think all the other Indian batters practice is about getting runs. Even when defending, looking for ones and twos,” he further added.
However, KL Rahul scored a stunning hundred in the first Test of India’s tour of South Africa in December last year. He followed that up with two low scores before scoring 86 in the first innings of the series opener against England at the start of this year as well. Sanjay Manjrekar feels KL Rahul has been troubled by temperamental issues throughout his Test career, resulting in sub-par scores.
“That is more of a temperamental problem with KL Rahul that has plagued him for 50 Test matches because the numbers that he has, while he has got some brilliant hundreds, an average of 34 with quite a few 100s in testing conditions tells you about his temperament, which we got a look at today as well,” concluded Sanjay Manjrekar.
