For quite sometime now KL Rahul has been facing a lot of flak due to his poor run on the international stage. Rahul has struggled in all the matches that he has been playing recently and looks far from his best. Despite everything that has been happening on the field, Rahul was appointed as the vice-captain of the Indian cricket team for the Border Gavaskar Trophy. What surprised many people was the management leaving Shubman Gill out. The Punjab-based youngster, Gill has had a sensational run across formats in the last two months.
Rahul has carried his struggles to the Border Gavaskar Trophy as well. Earlier this year in January, the Lucknow Super Giants skipper was stripped off his vice-captaincy role in the white ball formats. In the two matches that Rahul played in the ongoing Border Gavaskar Trophy, he scored 38 runs in 3 innings at an average of 12.67. In both the matches that KL has played, he has managed to hit just one four and one six. The statistics sum up Rahul's struggles with the bat very well. Interestingly, the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) announced India's squad for the remaining two Test matches and Rahul notably lost his job as vice-captain. Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid both were very vocal about how they want to back KL, but this decision did not go down very well with Venkatesh Prasad.
Prasad tweeted:
Rahul needs to play County cricket in England, score runs, and earn his place back, much like Pujara did when he was dropped. Playiing Test Cricket for the country and doing everything possible to get back in form will be the best answer. But will it be possible to skip the IPL? A few people thinking i have something personal against KL Rahul. Infact it is the opposite. I wish well for him and playing him in such form was never going to enhance his confidence. For him to earn his place back in Test cricket, now that the domestic season has ended.
Interestingly, former India opener Aakash Chopra feels otherwise and has defended KL Rahul. Aakash Chopra feels that skipper Rohit Sharma, head coach Rahul Dravid, and the entire team management know what they are doing and this is why they are backing Rahul.
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Chopra tweeted:
Indian batters in SENA countries. May be, this is the reason selectors/coach/captain are backing KLR. He’s played 2 Tests at home (ongoing BGT) during this period. No, I don’t need a BCCI role as a selector/coach. I don’t need any mentor, coaching role at any IPL team either
India's squad for the remaining two Border-Gavaskar Trophy Tests: Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, KS Bharat (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat.
