The studious care with which KL Rahul nurdled the first ball by Nathan Lyon in the Brisbane Test was proof enough that he was locked in. The off-break, introduced reluctantly as umpires deemed the light insufficient for India to face Australia’s on-song quicks on Day 3, started from round the wicket with a leg slip and a forward short leg. Pitching marginally outside leg, it was a delivery that could neither be bunted with a big stride nor dealt with off the backfoot. Instead, his opening salvo asked Rahul to come half-forward, a dangerous interception point against quality spin.
Complicating matters was the line, given the two close-in catchers waiting for an error in judgement. The ball wasn’t too far down the leg to be left alone and not straight enough to be negotiated with the full face of the bat. Australian is anyway synonymous with extra bounce, so the possibility of a ricochet from the inside half of the bat loomed large. In essence, Lyon had laid the trap perfectly.
Rahul though was up to the task. With compact frontfoot movement and dexterous wristwork he tapped the ball gently on its head to smother the spin and keep it all along the ground. The contact with the bat splice piqued Lyon’s interest and his arms went up in anticipation but Rahul’s defensive technique was simply immaculate on that occasion. Such decisiveness, judgement and application was largely absent from the Indian innings despite Rahul laying down the marker, with only Ravindra Jadeja having the required patience to follow suit. It can, of course, be argued that some of the Indian batters have tasted success with an ebullient modus operandi but an unwillingness to get used to the behaviour of the surface before flaunting their strokeplay underpinned the majority of the wickets.
While an eager-beaver Yashasvi Jaiswal flicked the second ball of the innings in the air, Rahul’s interception points confirmed his propensity to meet the ball close to his body, taking the aerial route only when he flashed hard at width. That too, of his own volition, as the lively nature of Australian pitches sends thick edges flying over the cordon.
Adventures in the corridor of uncertainty spelt doom for Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, but Rahul hasn’t developed as strong an attraction to the beguilers. He covered the off-stump with his front pad and left balls alone in his unique style where he shadow-blocks inside the line of the ball to avoid dismissals while withdrawing the bat like that of Kohli in the first innings at Perth.
Batting time is Rahul’s mantra to get runs overseas. ‘’When you are going to the centre, you feel everything is going so fast, don’t go so fast, slow down the game,’’ he advised Nitish Reddy recently. In an Indian batting unit so keen to stamp its authority Rahul is an oasis of calm, and research suggests that human beings make better decisions with a centered state of mind.
In SENA countries where the odds are stacked against batsmanship he goes in thinking that the duration of occupying the crease will be directly proportional to the ease of scoring runs, with environmental familiarity serving as the bridge. It is a belief hardened by the accomplishment of seven overseas tons, for Rahul too on his maiden tour of Australia was guilty of premature imposition on the game, interestingly versus the same tweaker to whom he paid due respect in the dying embers of the third day.
Setting the tone for India’s realization of the 246 runs needed to avoid the follow-on, Rahul’s 84 added more heft to his foundational principle. Mitchell Starc’s tramline kisser was guided past gully, Josh Hazlewood’s long hop sped to the cover fence, and Pat Cummins’ wayward length ball invited a glance as the Australian skipper returned for his second spell of the day earlier than he’d have liked because of Hazlewood’s injury. ‘’If you can get through those first 10, 15 overs and get a bit of confidence, then you start feeling good and you start enjoying playing with the Kookaburra ball, with the pace and bounce here in Australia,’’ Rahul said.
“The only thing you can do in the first 30 overs is to tighten up your defence, try and respect that the first 30 overs is the bowler’s time and give them their time. Leave balls, try and play as tight as possible and then really try to cash in once the ball gets older. So, that’s my plan and that’s pretty simple. And I’m sure that’s the plan for everybody. For some people, it works on a given day. For some, it doesn’t. So, we’ll all come back again in the next innings and try harder.”
In the early stages of his knock Rahul had to ‘try harder’ to concentrate as the umpires repeatedly took the players off the field as if they were cattle encroaching on private vegetation. Rahul was switched on regardless; his handsome drives signifying the clarity of thought even as India’s top-order buckled under the erraticism of start-stop cricket. It was almost as if he was able to compartmentalize his shot selection, rendering his stay in the middle a harmonious dance of fire and ice.
Resolute in defence, he was utterly committed to the strokes when the scoring opportunity presented itself, harnessing the sunny conditions at the beginning of the fourth day to garner 51 runs off 75 balls after resuming on an overnight score of 33(64). Thanks to his ball-striking caliber Rahul can channelise his flamboyant avatar on an ad hoc basis in Test cricket, with the lofted six over covers to Marco Jansen in late 2023 bearing testimony.
Steve Smith’s jaw-dropping redemption at slip saw Rahul fall short of three figures once more on this tour, but if the ripples of joy felt in the Indian camp over the potentially match-saving development in the twilight period are anything to go by, his contribution is worth its weight in gold.
