He deserves that place: Skipper Rohit Sharma on letting KL Rahul open in Adelaide Test
Dec 05, 2024
Adelaide [Australia], December 5 : India skipper Rohit Sharma on Thursday said that his teammate KL Rahul deserves to open the batting lineup in the upcoming Adelaide Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
What this means is that the skipper will go back to the middle order despite his good showing at the top of the order in Test cricket. For KL Rahul it means a vote of confidence in his abilities especially after his showing in the Perth Test. In the Perth Test, KL Rahul played a magnificent innings of 77 runs from 176 balls which was laced with five boundaries in his innings.
Rahul along with Yashasvi Jaiswal built a record-breaking partnership of 201 runs for the first wicket in the opening Test of the five-match Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25 at the Optus Stadium in Perth.
Speaking at the pre-match press conference, Rohit Sharma said that KL Rahul deserves the opening spot after how he performed outside of India. The skipper added that the decision was not easy for him personally but for the team it was simple.
"We want results, we want success and those two guys at the top just looking at this one Test match, they batted brilliantly. I was at home with my newborn in my arms and I was watching how KL batted, it was brilliant to watch, to be honest, and I felt that there was no need to change that now maybe in the future things will be different, I don't know. Based on what happened and what KL has shown outside of India, he probably deserves that place at this point in time and you know it is something that has given us success in the first Test to have that big partnership with Jaiswal on the other side... So it was actually pretty simple for me, but personally not easy but for the team. Yeah, it made a lot of sense," Rohit said.
Earlier, Rohit Sharma revealed that he would be coming off somewhere in the middle of the batting lineup and KL Rahul would open.
"He'll be opening the batting; I'll bat somewhere in the middle," Rohit Sharma was quoted by ESPNcricinfo as saying.
KL Rahul made his Test debut against Australia in 2014. following that he has appeared in 54 long format matches and scored 3084 runs at a strike rate of 52.56 and an average of 34.26.
India are currently 1-0 up in the BGT series following their record-shattering 295-run victory in Perth. The second Test will be played in a day-night format in Adelaide, beginning from Friday.
