A worrying drought with no monsoon winds in sight Premium

K.L. Rahul is highly rated by the Indian team-management but has not scored the runs to justify his rich talent over the last year. Given his importance to a squad that will have to deal with a transition sooner or later, it’s vital he finds a purple patch of form

Team sport can often gift a bittersweet flavour to the cogs within the unit. An athlete in the squad could either relish personal success or slump with a poor yield while the larger contingent may experience a contrasting outcome — a loss or a soaring triumph. A hundred in a losing cause and a single-digit score in a glittering win are both part of cricket’s ‘glorious uncertainties’.

K. Srikkanth led India to a gritty draw in a Test series, however once the dust settled on that 1989 tour of Pakistan, the skipper’s poor form was held against him and he was stripped of the captaincy. Cut to the present, another opener, not exactly a maverick-swashbuckler like Srikkanth, but elegant and steady in his own right and one who led India to a 2-0 triumph over Bangladesh in the away Test series that concluded in Dhaka, is dealing with his own vagaries of form.

K.L. Rahul isn’t immune to sport’s whimsical nature. After a forgettable Test debut at Melbourne during the 2014-15 tour Down Under, where he proved to be a nervous wreck, rushing his shots and trudging back to the pavilion, Rahul was in his element in the next clash at Sydney and etched a 110. The second dig though was restricted to a mere 16 and it is a trend that has shadowed him often: a staggering high metamorphosing into a debilitating low.

Yet, his present drought without any monsoon winds in sight is a cause for worry. In a playing eleven largely headlined by regular skipper Rohit Sharma and his predecessor Virat Kohli, both hovering around their mid-thirties, the 30-year-old Rahul was expected to be the bridge between the generation of Rohit, Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane and the next one keen to break into the Test whites. A similar transition, perhaps a touch faster, is already at play in white-ball cricket and Rahul was supposed to be the glue.

During the Bangladesh tour, captain Rahul scored 22, 23, 10 and two in the Tests and in the preceding ODIs, he mustered 73, 14 and eight. A middling record and one in sync with his feeble imprint in international cricket over the last few seasons. A 123 in the Centurion Test against South Africa in December 2021 and a 50 and 51 against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe respectively in the 2022 ICC T20 World Cup in Australia were some rare peaks in an otherwise frustrating display of diffident outings.

That he is seen as indispensable by the team-management was often driven home in the press conferences addressed by coach Rahul Dravid and skipper Rohit. That Rahul was handed the wicket-keeping gloves in limited-over jousts is also a pointer to the think-tank’s desire of retaining him in the eleven. Besides batsmanship and a nomenclature similarity, Rahul and the Indian team coach, during their respective careers, also had to re-invent themselves in the blue shade by donning the wicket-keeping gloves.

The vice-captaincy and the stand-in skipper role for Rahul again reveal the primacy he has within the change-rooms but this is no land where a dip in form can be masked by a leaning towards cerebral leadership. It is a leeway that was reserved for England’s Mike Brearley and Rahul isn’t Brearley in the captaincy sweepstakes while Brearley isn’t Rahul in the art of batting.