KL Rahul’s poor run of form has led to extensive debates around his place in the Indian team, but the BCCI and its selection committee continued to show their trust in Rahul’s abilities as a batsman by including him in the squad for the Test series in Australia for the Border Gavaskar Trophy.
After scoring a duck and 12 runs in two innings of the first Test against New Zealand, a fit-again Shubman Gill replaced Rahul in India’s playing eleven for the Pune Test. However, it was the home team’s collective batting failure that saw them losing both the Tests to concede an unassailable 2-0 lead to the Kiwis.
The debate on KL Rahul’s place came up in Ramiz Raja‘s latest video on his YouTube channel where he was doing a Q&A session with the fans, and an Indian fan asked the former Pakistan captain how he sees the situation with Rahul and if it’s comparable to what’s happening with Babar Azam.
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Babar, after being dropped from the Test squad, has been included in Pakistan’s white-ball tour of Australia.
“Har koi MS Dhoni nahi ban sakta,” said Ramiz when the fan pointed out to him how Dhoni used to perform in crunch games and lead Indian victories, but Babar and Rahul have seldom done that. “Unko upar wale ke inayat thi (Dhoni was blessed). He had clarity and a strong temperament. The example that you have given, I think there will be one or two players like that in the world.”
Citing the example of Kohli’s inconsistent form over the last two years, the 1992 World Cup winner said “big-match players” are always persisted with, despite their bad patch.
“Virat Kohli ka graph neeche ja raha hai, unhone ne bhi score nahi kiya hai (Kohli’s graph is going down, he too hasn’t scored much lately), but he is a big-match player, so nobody has a problem,” said Ramiz.
The former Pakistan captain felt similarly for Rahul, which is why, he says, the Indian board is “persisting with him”.
“KL Rahul has immense potential,” said Ramiz. “But shayad freeze ho jate hain, par jab khelte hain to khoob khelte hain. Isme koi shaq nahi hai ke technically bahut bade player hain (he gets frozen at times but plays brilliantly when he does; there is no doubt that technically he is a big player).
“That’s why India is persisting with him because they know ke jab yeh khelenge to agle pichhle saare gile shikve nikal denge (when Rahul will perform, he will make amends). I think he is just one or two innings away (from striking form). When you perform well in a big match, then you become big-hearted, then you are out of your bad-recall moments and you start recalling all the good moments.
“Similarly, I feel Babar Azam is an innings away from cracking it,” Ramiz concluded his reply.
