A 100, alright a 150, against the current West Indian Test attack, even if the venue be Sabina Park, where the pitch was once feared whatever the quality of the bowling, is not exactly the occasion to decide that a batsman has arrived
Bangalore: A 100, alright a 150, against the current West Indian Test attack, even if the venue be Sabina Park, where the pitch was once feared whatever the quality of the bowling, is not exactly the occasion to decide that a batsman has arrived.
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KL Rahul en route his 158 against West Indies on Sunday. Pic:AP/PTI
But when at the very beginning of the innings, a certain Vivian Alexander Richards, probably the modern game's most destructive batsman, after watching perhaps just a few deliveries, announces to the world that the 'man has class', then you know KL Rahul has arrived and in style. Only a week or so before Rahul was seen soaking up all that Richards was saying in the course of an informal chat with some members of the Indian team ahead of the first Test at Antigua and here he was being praised out of the world by the same worthy.
It is indeed well deserved praise and a result of some really hard yards put in over the years in the junior circuits first and in First Class cricket later. Hailing from Mangalore, part of Karnakata's coastal belt, Rahul played most of his junior cricket from there, moving to Bangalore only after being picked for the India U-19 squad.
Rahul didn't have the best of starts to his First-Class career and was in and out of the Karnataka side in the initial years but in 2013-14 Ranji Trophy season, he came into his own. It wasn't the 1000 runs that he gathered that stood out, rather it was the assured manner in which he made them that marked him out as someone with a future.
Vijay Bharadwaj
The ability to defend and attack with equal panache is Rahul's hallmark, knowing when to do either is another. He stands tall at the crease and is a natural and most exquisite driver of the ball but then he's a near compulsive puller and hooker too, something that almost cost him his career before it had started. A terrible pull in his debut Test in Melbourne could have seen him dropped for the fourth and final Test but like in Sri Lanka later and in Jamaica now, he had a common ally in Virat Kohli. The present Indian Test captain took over the full-time job in the final Test in Sydney after MS Dhoni suddenly stepped down. Kohli retained Rahul and the rest is history, at least one in the making.
"To me Rahul is a multi-dimensional player and is suited to both ODIs and Tests. I, for one, never believed the prevailing myth that he was more suited for the longest format," Vijay Bharadwaj, former Karnataka and India batsman and the man who picked Rahul in the State U-19 squad from the Mangalore Zone, told mid-day.
"The best part about him is that he's mentally very strong. I have never see him get angry and that calmness helps," said Bharadwaj, who also coached the Karnataka Ranji team at one time. "His looks may have changed (referring to the new hair-do, the beard, the tattoos, etc) but none of that affects his cricket. With the game he's always dead serious," assured Bharadwaj.
It all also has to do with confidence and here Rahul will undoubtedly be grateful for the successes enjoyed by the Karnataka team in the last 3-4 years when they started to win all the domestic titles in sight. Not being rushed into the Indian team and being allowed to soak in the pressure involved with playing in a long domestic season time and again was certainly the right thing to happen to someone like Rahul. During that time he also got to spend a lot of quality time with his more illustrious Karnataka namesake, Rahul Dravid, and like with Sir Viv Richards more recently, Rahul, no doubt took in all the wisdom on offer. The individual success simply followed.
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