KL Rahul Recalled His Young Self To Find His Feet Back In Test Cricket

While K.L. Rahul's success as an opening batsman in the first two Tests has been attributed by the team management to 40-50 days of preparation in the nets in England, a mental shift to his younge

Experts have praised the way he has left deliveries outside the off-stump, planting his front foot on the off-stump which makes him leave the ball better. That is being hailed as sound judgement.

Rahul had played his initial cricket for Mangalore Zone in Karnataka state cricket before moving to Bangalore when playing under-19 cricket.

Playing early cricket in Mangalore turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Mangalore had top quality bowlers, who could trouble any zone's batting line-up. But they lacked batsmen. Rahul, therefore, got the onerous duty of farming the strike all throughout an innings.

"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.

Rahul had impressed the then Indian batting mainstay Rahul Dravid quite early in his career. While he was scoring a big century in an under-13 game over a decade and a half back, Dravid was doing his fitness by the side. The young Rahul had his first brush with Indian cricket then.