KL Rahul talks about the upcoming tour to South Africa

Many well wishers of Indian cricket feel that the selectors need to find a way to keep the extremely talented KL Rahul in the mix for the 2019 World Cup.

Rahul has slowly but surely grown in stature over the last year, with head coach Ravi Shastri calling him the most improved player in the squad in that time period.

The talented right hander is currently an understudy to Dhawan and Rohit in the ODIs, with his limited overs cricket only coming in the form of T20s over the last few months. With the South Africa series about to start in a few days from now, Rahul spoke about what he feels India must do to be successful in India.

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“On Indian wickets, especially since we’re going from having played the shorter formats, pitches don’t do much, so you can stand and play a lot of shots. Once you go there, there will be a lot of seam movement. You will have to leave a lot of balls, especially against the new ball, and be selective in your strokes. You have to give yourself some time to get set.”

“Obviously, ek-do baar hoga then you say it’s fine, but if it has happened 8-9 times then you sit and think about what’s going wrong. And honestly, I don’t have an answer, considering it’s those early runs that are tougher to get and it generally gets easier later in your innings when I’m getting out. And I’ve gotten out in different ways.”

“There is a calmness in how Vijay goes about his innings. The way he takes his time and the way he leaves balls around off-stump. He controls that phase of the game and gives a lot of confidence, as a result, to the man at the other end.”

“Shikhar is more attacking. The right-left combination also makes the bowler constantly readjust his line and length. It gives an opportunity to get more bad balls,” he said.

He hasn’t said this to me in as many words, but he’s somebody who has helped me a lot. He has helped me mentally and given me confidence as a coach and is like a mentor to all of us. He is constantly asking us to be fearless and back our game. He is someone with whom I can talk about anything.”