KL Rahul’s inclusion in India’s squad for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) was questioned before he first faced Australia. But since then, he has been the only Indian batter who has consistently dealt with the Australian bowlers. Although his runs may not reflect it fully, it is clear from how Rahul adapted his technique to tackle the Australian pacers.
At the Gabba, where many top-order Indian batters were getting out by poking at deliveries outside the off-stump, Rahul showed no such tendencies. Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant, and Rohit Sharma all got out caught behind — either to the slips or the wicketkeeper. A comparison graphic shown on Day 4 of the match highlighted what Rahul was doing differently compared to Rohit and Kohli against the Australian pacers’ strategy of bowling fuller to induce edges.
Graphic 1: It showed that while Kohli and Rohit were trying to play the ball in front of their pads, which means they were going after the ball, Rahul was playing it much closer to his body, keeping his bat under his eye. This made his technique more compact and controlled.
Graphic 2: This graphic showed that Rahul was letting the ball come to him and playing it later, meaning he was intercepting it closer to his body, while Kohli and Rohit were meeting the ball much earlier, ahead of their pads. Kohli, in particular, was lunging forward to meet the ball and getting caught behind repeatedly.
Talking about Kohli’s issue with getting caught behind, former India captain Sunil Gavaskar suggested that Kohli take a lesson from Sachin Tendulkar’s 2004 Sydney Test innings. Before that Test, Tendulkar had been struggling with deliveries outside his off-stump, and he smartly avoided playing cover drives. Instead, he scored most of his runs on the leg side, finishing with 241 runs in that innings.
Gavaskar said, “Kohli only needs to look at his hero, Sachin Tendulkar. The way he controlled his off-side game and scored 241 runs at Sydney. He didn’t play any shot on the off-side, especially in the cover region, because before that, he was getting out trying to play those shots.”
Despite his struggles, Kohli played an excellent knock in the first Test at Perth, scoring an unbeaten 100 in India’s second innings. His other scores in this series have been 5, 7, 11, and 3.
Rohit has been out of form since the home Test series against New Zealand and Bangladesh, where he scored just 42 runs in four innings against Bangladesh and 91 runs in six innings against New Zealand. In Australia, his scores have been 3, 6, and 10 in Adelaide and the Gabba, after he moved down to the middle order to allow Rahul to open, as Rahul regained his form.
On the other hand, Rahul has looked very confident in four out of his five innings in this series, scoring two half-centuries along with scores of 26, 77, 37, 7, and 84.
