Is there a way out for KL Rahul?
The new year is off and running; resolutions are taken and a new ray of light in the form of hope has begun to inspire people to do the stuff which they dreamt off. For instance, the new recruit of the Indian Cricket Team- Mayank Agarwal. Fantastic way to kick off a year! Two resounding fifties and a gritty 44 in his three outings have allowed him to make a case about his presence in the whites.
These performances have also proved the selectors why he deserved the call for India. Moreover, his senior player, Cheteshwar Pujara, has also proved a point that it does not matter in which format you play; what matters is how you play and how desperate are you to prove yourself at the highest level of the game.
Contrasting KL:
However, there is KL Rahul for whom the problems are growing exponentially. There seems to be no escape route. What a year 2018 was for KL Rahul, an INR 11 crore IPL tag, the highest run scorer in the tournament and a good outing in the blue jersey in the limited overs in England.
Alas, this purple patch didn't last for too long. Since then the player has struggled for form and has become a constant in-out feature of this Indian team. But it will be wrong to tag the previous tour or year for his poor performances, it was coming and now the fact is evident in front of everyone.
He started in December 2016 with a century and was averaging about 42 in 19 innings. Then in 2017, the centuries dried up and then came a phase where he smacked seven half-centuries on a trot (nine overall) and was averaging 48 in 14 innings in that period. We thought the breakthrough was just around the corner. Look what happened thereafter, in 23 innings he scored 477 runs with an average of 21.
With an average of 21 in 23 innings, Rahul cannot complain that he has not gotten the chances he deserved. What’s more shocking is the way he has gone out, he has been bowled and LBW often in a clear revelation of his weakness against the fuller length. These are shocking figures for an opening batsman and more surprising when the player is as talented as Rahul.
Figures depict a problem:
Nonetheless, these figures significantly state one thing and it is that KL Rahul is struggling with his footwork. To put this thing in plain, KL Rahul is too slow and tentative with his footwork. There were balls he probably didn’t want to play. There were incoming deliveries which had been troubling him but when he tried to counter those tormenting inswinging cherries with aggression as he did in this innings, he left himself open to the outgoing cherry which had cost him his wicket.
It is really concerning to see Rahul struggle for runs. The player we know is someone who makes bowlers look ordinary. Be it a yorker or a bouncer, he had the answer to the question every delivery a bowler possessed. Then the question here is- where did he go wrong?
What has happened to the batsman who is so much more technically blessed than the other batsmen in the dressing room? Is it the continuous chopping environment which has hampered his progress or is the building pressure of the competition for a place in the team which is resulting in these poor performances?
What's next?
Sometimes when a person is down and out; the first thing that gets affected is his creativity to produce something. Something similar is happening to Rahul right now, he is unable to produce performances which are expected of him. He is certainly not in the best frame of mind as he should be and this happens to every human being which is quite normal.
There will be a phase in a cricketer's career where no matter how hard he tries he will not be able to find the middle of the bat. Virat Kohli faced the same in 2014, Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan also faced it post 2016 Australia tour and the list can go on and on but what’s more important is that how the player reacts to this situation.
Mind you, it takes a character to pull one out of such situations.
What happens when a writer faces a writer's block? He takes a break from it and he diverts his mind to different things for some time. This is what Rahul should do for quite some time for the longer version of the game. He should go back to the limited overs game, enjoy his freedom the way Dhawan is doing and get some rhythm in the domestic circuit and then, maybe, wait in the queue for the Test match berth.
Though this thing is easier said than done and especially knowing the fact Mayank Agarwal is making a point with his astute performances and Prithvi Shaw is bound to get a place on his return. Moreover, the holding play of Hanuma Vihari has also become a tempting option for a backup opener in front of an adventurous captain in the form of Virat Kohli, thus, making chances of KL Rahul thinner than his current situation can depict.
The real question here is- will a break on the Test career for Rahul improve his situation or will this break hamper the already struggling form of this tramped-down opener?