Sunil Gavaskar, former Indian skipper, has come out in support of underfire and struggling batsman KL Rahul, who is currently going through a horror patch, saying the Karnataka lad can be the next big thing in Indian Cricket only if he figures out his preliminary movement.

The right-hander has not only been facing a tough time on the field in the recent times but also facing horror time off the field especially due to Koffee with Karan controversy, as the opener was suspended with immediate effect by BCCI with the further investigation is pending by CoA.

He struggled throughout 2018, resulting in him losing his place in the team with the likes of Prithvi Shaw and Mayank Aggarwal coming through, which made things difficult for the opener to get back into the national Test team and recent talk show controversy made things even worst from the cricketer.

Gavaskar said as quoted by the field, “I think it is a combination of poor technique and mental frailty, He is short of runs, so he is short of confidence. I’ve said it before but I think he is going to be the next big thing in Indian cricket and I do believe he still has the capability of becoming the next big thing if he just solely focuses on his batting and a couple of things that seem to have crept in.”

Meanwhile, the batting master claimed that Rahul needs to work hard to sort out his preliminary movement, adding: “I think what he really needs to do is figure out his preliminary movement. Sachin [Tendulkar] had a slight front foot movement… not even front and across.”

Gavaskar signed off by saying, “Just slight front foot movement. He got his momentum to go forward or back from that. But your balance still remains the same. In Rahul’s case, the balance doesn’t remain the same because when he goes on the back foot and then onto the front, the balance has moved so much to the front that he is unable to make that late adjustment.”

(With Scroll.in Inputs)