Sanjay Manjrekar, recently, gave his opinion on KL Rahul’s batting in the longest format of the game and also addressed the growing concerns over the batter’s form.
Though KL Rahul did not have the best of starts to the Duleep Trophy, yet playing for the very underperforming side, he was the pick of the batters with a 50 in the fourth inning as well; he was included in India’s squad for the first test.
This was Rahul’s comeback into red-ball cricket after a long gap from the format, though he was dismissed for a minor score of 16 of 52 balls in the first Indian inning. To this, Sanjay Manjrekar remarked that Rahul is among those cricketers who never seem comfortable even when he is in the finest of touches.
Though the cricketer questioned the player’s temperament, it might take his fans by surprise as Rahul is undoubtedly one of the most composed characters ever seen on the cricket field. Yet, Manjrekar also praised Rahul to be a fascinating cricketer who has played several scintillating knocks for India on several match-winning occasions.
“This has been the KL Rahul story. It’s amazing that he plays brilliant innings at the Test level, and in the next two or three innings, it seems like he has a pair in the last Test. Even when you saw him bat today, it almost seemed like an inning without purpose. That can happen; it happened to me in the second half of my career where everything was internal,” Manjrekar said, as reported by ESPNcricinfo.
India vs Bangladesh 1st Test: India takes a comfortable lead over underdog visitors at the end of Day 2
India has started their much anticipated red ball season, and the first among the many opponents for the Men in Blue are the men from the neighboring nation who are bloated with confidence from their historic win against arch-rivals Pakistan.
India was posed to bat on Day 1, as the Indian batters faced early struggle with the top-order players in, skipper Sharma, Shubman Gill, and veteran Virat Kohl going out cheaply to star pacer Hasan Mahmud.
Despite some semblance added by the partnership between Jaiswal and Pant, India never seemed back into the back until all-rounders Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin put on a massive 150+ runs partnership for the 7th wicket as India posted 339/6 at the end of Day 1.
Day 2 started with Jadeja’s wicket for 86 runs, followed by a stellar hundred from Ashwin. India ended their innings on 376, as Mahmud was the pick of the bowlers with a 5-fer.
However, Bangladesh batters faced a brutal thrashing from the Indian pace attack as the trio of Jasprit Bumrah, Siraj, and Akash Deep, just playing his second test, crept through the defence of the Bangladesh batters. With some later heroics from Jadeja, he got the crucial wickets of Shakib and in-form batter Litton.
Bumrah’s 4-fer got the better of their innings as Bangladesh collapsed for a minor 149 runs at Chennai.
India, in return, now staged 81/3 after Shubman Gill and Rishabh Pant added balance to their innings, as India ended Day 2 in a dominant state with a lead of 308 runs.
