India batter KL Rahul was seen sweating hard in the practice nets in Perth ahead of the first Test against Australia set to begin from November 22 at Perth Stadium, Perth. Rahul recently played in the second unofficial Test against Australia A but failed to impress with the bat scoring 4 and 10 in the two innings respectively.
However, despite his consistent poor run, Rahul has got complete backing of his head coach Gautam Gambhir who recently hailed his ability to bat at any position for the team. Having got complete backing of his head coach, Rahul was seen practicing hard in the nets long with teammates Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal in Perth.
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Against Australia A, Rahul ended up edging Scott Boland to wicketkeeper Jimmy Peirson in the first innings. Later in the second innings, he was bizarrely dismissed being bowled between his legs by Corey Rocchiccioli. Despite his consistent low scores, Gambhir feels Rahul could fill in as an opener in the first Test if captain Rohit Sharma is unavailable. Notably, Rohit could well miss the first Test due to personal reasons with his wife Ritika Sajdeh due for their second child.
Rahul’s inconsistent run since 2022
Rahul’s form has become a cause of concern for the Indian Test team as he was recently dropped for the last two Tests vs New Zealand with Sarfaraz Khan replacing him. Since 2022, he has scored 514 runs in Tests from 12 matches (21 innings) at an average of 25.7 having registered three half centuries and a century. Despite his below-par outings, the 32-year-old has got the support of the team management and it remains to be seen whether he will be asked to open in the first Test.
Rahul opened in Australia during his debut Test series 2014-15 and notched up a magnificent century in his second game. However, since then, he’s failed to cross the 44-run mark in the next six innings in the country. Hence, opening with Rahul could well turn out to be a huge gamble by the team management. However, considering the support he’s got from the team management, the star batter looks front runner to open in Rohit’s absence.