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"He'll curse himself": Ex-coach on KL Rahul as IND opener throws away his start vs WI

Rajgeeta Yadav

KL Rahul against West Indies [Source: AFP]KL Rahul against West Indies [Source: AFP]

KL Rahul, who had scored a brilliant hundred in the first Test against the West Indies, couldn’t repeat the same success in the second match. In the first innings of the Delhi Test, Rahul was dismissed after scoring 38 runs off 54 balls. He seemed all set for a fifty before a superb delivery from Jomel Warrican ended his stay at the crease.

Warrican bowled cleverly, setting Rahul up beautifully. After delivering one ball that went straight, the next one turned away sharply, by over 8 degrees and Rahul was stumped. The Indian opener looked shocked at how the ball spun so much, while Warrican celebrated getting the first breakthrough for his team.

Bangar praises KL Rahul's start of India's first innings

Former India cricketer and batting coach Sanjay Bangar felt that Rahul would be very disappointed with his dismissal. Speaking on Star Sports after the day’s play, Bangar praised Rahul’s start and his confident back-foot play but also pointed out some technical issues that appeared as the innings went on.

"The way he batted at the start was typical KL Rahul, where he was allowing the ball to come to him. He is a batter who doesn't try to go onto the front foot much. He plays very well on the back foot, and that's why a lot of runs come in the square leg and fine leg region against the new ball. He played a few excellent shots off the back foot," Bangar said.

"We saw him using the bottom hand a little. The bottom hand didn't look good on the straight drive and the lofted on-drive, and I was feeling that something was wrong, because generally KL Rahul's aerial shots go towards the sight screen. When he thinks about his dismissal in the dressing room, he will curse himself a lot because something was wrong, due to which he couldn't convert this score into a big score," he added.

Despite this, he joined an elite group of Indian batters, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, by crossing 2000 runs in the World Test Championship (WTC). He became the seventh Indian player to reach this milestone. Rishabh Pant leads the list with 2731 runs, followed by Rohit, Shubman Gill and Kohli.

Although Rahul fell for 38, others carried on, as India piled up 518 runs, thanks to Jaiswal’s 175, B Sai Sudharsan’s 87, and Shubman Gill’s unbeaten 129, before declaring their innings.