Sanjay Manjrekar, the former India cricketer-turned-media pundit, has slammed KL Rahul’s poor batting performance in the ongoing first Test between India and Bangladesh in Chennai. Rahul made 16 runs in 52 balls for India, falling to Mehidy Hasan, caught by Zakir Hasan at short-leg.
Rahul was named in India’s playing XI over the much-talented and in-form Sarfaraz Khan. This was because Rahul was returning from an injury in Test format.
Put in to bat in cloudy conditions on a red-soil field that saw Hasan Mahmud racing in with his tail up to tear through India's top order, the hosts were in danger at 34 for 3.
But Rishabh Pant (39) and Yashaswi Jaiswal (56) scored 62 crucial runs for the fourth wicket. Pant's wicket brought KL Rahul to the crease for his 51st Test. However, the 32-year-old struggled against young Bangladeshi pacers before being removed by spinner Mehidy Hasan Miraz for a 52-ball 16.
Talking about Rahul's innings, former India batsman Sanjay Manjrekar called it an "innings without purpose".
"This is KL Rahul's story. It's amazing that he plays a brilliant inning at the Test level, and in the next two-three innings it seems like he got a pair in the last Test.
Even when you saw him bat today (Day 1 of the Chennai Test), it almost seemed like an innings without purpose. But that can happen. It happened to me in the second half of my career, when everything was internalised. I went into bat just thinking about my technique, am I going to play this ball well, imagining a certain type of delivery coming in and I have got to play properly instead of going to my instinct as a batter, which I think all the other Indian batters practice...about getting runs. Even if you are defending, (you are) looking for ones and twos," Manjrekar said on ESPNCricinfo.
Rahul was India's sixth wicket, and the scoreboard read 144 for 6, indicating concern.
However, R Ashwin (113) and Ravindra Jadeja (86) put on 199 runs for the 7th wicket to help India put on 376 runs on the board.
Coming back to Rahul's innings, Manjrekar felt temperamental issues were hurting the right-hander.
"I think that is more a temperamental problem with KL Rahul, which has plagued him for 50 Test matches. The numbers that he has...He's got hundreds, not one or two, quite a few in testing conditions. But the average of 34 tells you about his temperament, and that we got a look at today as well," said Manjrekar.
Rahul has scored 2879 runs in 87 Test innings at an average of 33.87, including 8 hundreds and 14 fifties. "Let's hope things improve for him in the second innings," Manjrekar concluded.
