The second Test match hero KL Rahul is in the talks since his terrific century at Lord’s vs England.
Rahul came back to the Test squad after two years and that too when all the top priority openers were injured and he made the best of the opportunity he got.
“We could not meet personally and do anything because of Covid-19 but we talked on mind performance [ahead of England tour]. We got him back to younger days, how he was in his younger days,” Samuel Jayraj Muthu, who coached Rahul through his teens and developed him into a batsman in the initial phase of his career.
“Playing at this level, it is about the mind. We told him that you should bat like a kid, like 16-17 years old when he got three successive hundreds,” Jayraj told IANS from Mangalore.
“He is matured and 29 years. His basics are very strong and technically very strong from his younger days. Any small adjustments are easy for him. So we just spoke about things like what was his way, balance, positioning when he was a kid. How he played, how he left the ball.”
“We always had good bowlers, but never had batsman in Mangalore zone,” recalls Jayraj. “We used to tell Rahul that you have to play from both ends. You have to play five balls from this end, then take a single and play at the other end. He did that way through under-13, under-15 before the team started building up. That is why he has patience and concentration level. That helped. Also, he used to keep wickets,” added Jayraj further.
India will lock horns against England now in the third Test match at Headingley.
