Sampath Bandarupalli, our stats whiz: KL Rahul has the unique feat of being the only Indian opener with Test centuries in Australia, England, and South Africa. He has been India’s most assured batter during recent overseas tours. However, his place in the team is always under scrutiny, and he had to adjust to different batting positions.
But it is more of his self-doing, having not been consistent throughout his Test career and being injured. Among 26 batters with more than 3000 Test runs for India, only R Ashwin (25.75) and Kapil Dev (31.05) average lower than Rahul (33.79). He has played only 22 of India’s previous 54 Test matches and was injured in at least 14 of the 32 games he missed.
In his 57-match Test career, Rahul had more than two fifty-plus scores in a Test series only once – against Australia at home in 2017, where he scored six fifties in seven innings. It was also one of the only two series where he averaged over 40 after batting four or more innings. He averaged 58.25 against England at home in 2016, but 199 of the 233 runs came in one innings.
Rahul led India in a Test match at the start of 2022 even before Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah. He was then dropped from the Test team in 2023 when he was the vice-captain. He might have been leading the team today if things went in his favour in these three years.
Shubman Gill is no different. He has not batted below No. 3 in 32 Test matches but has a career average of just 35.47. He averaged 56.50 against England at home last year with two centuries and two fifties and 51.80 in his debut series, the only series where he had multiple fifty-plus scores.
Gill, so far, has played nine Test series where he batted four or more innings, while the same count for Rahul is 12. Only five Indian batters have a lower % of series with three or more fifty-plus scores than both Rahul and Gill (minimum of nine or more Test series where they batted four or more innings in the top six). Ravi Shastri (13), MAK Pataudi (12), Anshuman Gaekwad (10), Pankaj Roy (10) and Shikhar Dhawan (9) all failed to have a series with three or more fifty-plus scores.
