New Zealand vs India 2020 | Enjoying every challenge thrown at me reveals KL Rahul
KL Rahul in the past few months has emerged as one of India's most dependable players in white-ball cricket. It all began with the West Indies limited-overs series where he opened in place of an injured Shikhar Dhawan and made the opening slot his very own with consistent performances.
He continued his hot run of form in the Sri Lanka series as well and when Australia toured India for ODIs, Rahul also showed his ability to keep and took to life in middle-order as fish takes to water. In India's historic 5-0 whitewash of New Zealand in the T20 series, Rahul gave India a solid start in every game and won the man of the series award.
He also stepped in to captain the side in the final T20I after Rohit Sharma injured his calf muscle. This versatility shown by Rahul for whatever is asked of him has made him almost undroppable from both the ODI as well as the T20 squad.
“Every day I wake up and every day I have been thrown into the game, I am very grateful and loving the challenges that are being thrown at me,” Rahul said in the post-match presentation ceremony.
Rahul was extremely happy with the efforts the Indian bowlers put in the final T20I when once again the game looked out of India's grasp. The bowlers brought India back into the game and took wickets at crucial stages, helping them win the fifth T20I by seven runs.
“Everyone performed as a unit and we have always come out with the answers. The execution level is increasing and they are staying calm. Yuzvendra Chahal and Bumrah are senior bowlers and they have done it before, but Shardul, Saini and Sundar today, they did well and held their own,” Rahul asserted.
Rahul was particularly impressed with the way the bowlers responded and stuck to their plans even in absence of the full-time skipper Virat Kohli and vice-captain Rohit Sharma.
“Bowlers are now fearless with experimenting and are not worried about getting hit. It is important to have that mindset in T20 cricket. Today too, without Virat, I couldn’t really do much behind the stumps. I cannot run every ball. They were coming up with their own plans. It was great to see they know what to do and more often than not they did what they wanted to,” he said.