Till March this year, the experienced Ambati Rayudu was the front-runner for the position while KL Rahul was unsure of even making the trip to England and Wales. An ill-advised appearance on the TV show ‘Koffee with Karan’ with Hardik Pandya, meant Rahul was not only suspended for five international games on the Australia and New Zealand tour but was also battling to regain his spot due to his patchy form in Test cricket.
As luck would have it, Rayudu’s poor form coupled with Rahul hitting his straps in IPL-12 with Kings XI Punjab put him on the flight to London as debate for No. 4 position raged on.
“He was in a good space when he arrived with us (Kings XI). It was a tough start for him but he got into his groove once he found his rhythm in a couple of weeks. He’s a very, very fine player, it was a question of finding his rhythm which probably took a week or so,” Kings XI Punjab coach Mike Hesson told CricketNext about Rahul.
Chairman of selectors MSK Prasad had ear-marked all-rounder Vijay Shankar for the No. 4 position when the World Cup squad was announced last month. But a freak injury in the nets in India’s first practice session in London to Shankar, meant Rahul was slotted into that position for the first warm-up game against New Zealand at the Oval.
Rahul looked pleasing to the eye in his brief stay in the middle against the Kiwis but it’s his explosive ton against Bangladesh that has probably placed him in pole-position to start at No. 4 in India’s opening World Cup fixture against South Africa at Southampton on June 5.
“Look it’s a very big change, it’s a tough ask for anyone who has batted at the top of the order. A lot of international players have done it the other way around — middle-order player has moved to the top in white-ball cricket with a lot of success.
“Going the other way, very few players have been successful at it. Tom Latham springs to mind. KL is the one who can do it by starting well against both spin and pace. It is a tough ask but he has the skill to do it,” former New Zealand head coach Hesson felt.
“When you bat the top, you can get your innings underway with boundaries. There can be a number of dot balls in between but you can make up for that. KL has the ability to maneuver the ball, if he can add that pace between the wickets and ability to hit gaps for twos — aim being to minimize dots and score off every ball, then he’ll be really successful,” Hesson said.
