KL Rahul
India opener KL Rahul He seems to have struck a rich vein of form. In front of a capacity crowd at the “house of cricket”, Rahul scored his sixth Test century on Thursday and put India in the driver’s seat on the first day of the second Test versus hosts England.
In an innings of nine fours and a maximum, Rahul carried a Mark Wood delivery to the third man boundary, reaching the three-figure mark in the third and final session of the day.
Rahul played a perfect second fiddle at his partner’s time Rohit Sharma The first was moving towards the foreign test ton. James Anderson dismissed Rohit for 83 and then plucked Cheteshwar Pujara Just before tea, Rahul played a central role in the third and final session, scoring his third century against England. The 29-year-old’s last century against England was in 2018, where he scored 149 at the Oval.
Rahul also played a brilliant innings of 84 runs in the first Test at Trent Bridge. The Karnataka batsman’s purple patch will be a big relief for the team management as he had lost his place in the Test side due to a bad patch for a long time.
The right-handed batsman, who was initially in the mix as a middle-order substitute, replaced the injured Mayank Agarwal Over the top and demonstrated his versatility against the red cherries.
Rahul also became the third Indian opener after Vinoo Mankad (184) and Ravi Shastri to score a Test century at the prestigious Lord’s. He joins Virender Sehwag in the list of most centuries by an Indian opener in Tests outside India. Sunil Gavaskar tops the list with 15 tons. Sehwag and Rahul are second with four centuries each, followed by Mankad and Shastri (three centuries each) in third place.
Earlier in the day, Rohit’s batting performance helped India take an early lead. The senior India opener shared a century partnership with Rahul and dismissed England’s fast bowlers in cloudy conditions. The duo put on an opening partnership of 126 runs before Anderson’s in-swing delivery dismissed Rohit.
After the first Test that ended in a draw, Rahul had said that he was happy to have his chance in England after a “disappointing” stint with India in red-ball cricket. He has so far scored more than 2000 runs in Test cricket with the highest score of 199.
“From the last 2-3 series (in India vs Australia and vs England), I’ve been sitting out. The team was doing really well and I was very happy to be a part of the team and see how we beat the teams. India and then Australia.
“So it was great to be a part of it, but it was also very disappointing that the opportunities weren’t coming. It was just practice, practice and practice and as a player you want to be in the middle and challenge yourself, So I kept waiting for my chance, so I am very happy that it came to England.”
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