‘KL Rahul does not have…’ – Former Indian cricketer comes in support of India opener after first Test failure

Former Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar backs stand-in skipper KL Rahul after he failed to score runs in both innings of the ongoing first Test match against Bangladesh at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium, Chattogram. 

On Friday, the Indian opener started well but was not able to capitalize on his start as pacer Khaled Ahmed got the better of him. Rahul appeared to be in extreme discomfort several times as the pacer smacked him with a flurry of short deliveries.

His knock came to an end when Taijul Islam at fine leg easily collected Khaled’s misjudged pull on a bouncer in the 23rd over. The 30-year-old was left with a lot of frustration after getting 23 runs and will now wait for the second Test to get back into form

Manjrekar was part of the commentary panel where he mentioned that the cricketer has no problem facing short deliveries and it was just a one-off incident when he got it wrong.

“KL Rahul does not have a weakness against short ball. But he got out trying to attack the short ball today,” said Manjrekar on air.

Shubman Gill and Cheteshwar Pujara shine with their tons

After waiting for so long, Shubman Gill scored his maiden century on day Three of the first Test match against the Bangla Tigers. Gill received criticism on social media for his performance in the first innings and was able to silence his haters with a patient century in response. The Fazilka-born cricketer scored 110 runs before getting dismissed to off-spinner Mehidy Hasan Miraz.

However, India continued to score runs even after then. Pujara once again demonstrated why he is such a reliable batsman for India in the longest format after a fantastic performance in the first innings. After more than 1400 days, the batsman finally had the chance to record a three-figure total as he, concluded his innings on 102* from 130 balls. Additionally, Pujara’s century was his fastest in Test cricket (in terms of balls consumed).

India declared their second innings at 258/2 and set a mammoth target of 513 runs for Bangladesh in order to win the first test of two test match series.