Credits: BCCI/X
KL Rahul, who is India’s newly-promoted opener made a surprising revelation after the side avoided follow-on in the third Test of the Border Gavaskar Trophy. Notably, Rahul has been promoted to open India’s batting in the ongoing Test, and it seems that the cricketer is trying his hard to make the most of it. The batter revealed that he was thinking of padding up to bat again when India lost their ninth wicket for 213 on the fourth Test of the Brisbane Test. Notably, Rahul top scored India’s batting line-up with a valiant 84 in the first innings. However, when threats of follow-on were looming over the Indian team, Rahul had started to prepare himself to bat for the second time in the day.
But, it was the duo of Indian pacers Akash Deep and Jasprit Bumrah, who built an unbeaten 39-run stand before Ravindra Jadeja’s 123-ball 77 gave the side some stability. Akash Deep smashed a boundary off Pat Cummins delivery helping India avoid the follow-on in the third game. Rahul revealed that he wasn’t sure if the pacers would be able to do so, hence, he was padding up to bat for the second time. In the post-match interview, Rahul said, "At that stage (213/9), I was thinking more about going and padding up and trying to go back to bad. I'm not sure if they would have enforced the follow-on, so I was thinking about what I need to do about my batting.”
It's always nice to see bowlers go out there and get some runs: KL Rahul praises bowlers
The batter also heaped praise on the bowlers for contributing to the overall score. He said, “It's always nice to see bowlers go out there and get some runs, they put in a lot of effort in the nets and when it mattered today, I'm happy that they could really play some shots and very exciting shots. It was a very exciting contest in the last half an hour… not just the runs that they got but also the heart that they showed to keep away the bouncers, get behind the ball, defend well, play some nice shots. It will give them and the team a lot of confidence."
Rahul also revealed what the management conveyed to Akash Deep when he tried to whack one out of the middle, when the side needed just four runs. He said, "It's very simple. Try and get those runs. Don't have to try and do it with a boundary but just knock it around with singles. They (Australia) had spread the field so the singles were there to be taken. So just stay a bit more patient because just before the message went out, we saw that Akash tried to hit a boundary, so just a message to calm down and see if they can get 5-6 singles and avoid the follow-on.”
