(Cricket news) KL Rahul’s place in the Indian side has been questioned across formats for a long time now. Currently in Test series against Australia he is the vice captain and hence was preferred over Shubman Gill to open alongside captain Rohit Sharma. The decision had a divided opinion as Gill is in the form of his life while Rahul is struggling a little.

However the decision was understandable as Rahul played well in the 2017 Border-Gavaskar trophy and is a better player of spin. In the 3 innings across the first 2 Tests KL Rahul scored 20,17 and 1. The batting conditions were tough but it now may be time to get Gill back in the mix and not waste his talent on the bench.

Captain Rohit Sharma and head coach Rahul Dravid have both publically said that they will continue to back KL Rahul. Dravid and batting coach Vikram Rathore said that he has scored centuries in England and South Africa which shows his quality. However the centuries are often followed by a string of low scores. An average of 33.4 after 47 Tests is just not good enough.

Especially when other players like Shikhar Dhawan, Mayank Agarwal and Hanuma Vihari didn’t get this much backing while someone like Sarfaraz Khan doesn’t even get into the squad despite scoring big consistently at the domestic level. Prithvi Shaw is another player who is also knocking on the door with good perfomances

Had KL Rahul played at least one confident innings in the 2 Tests against Bangladesh and the following 2 against Australia then his selection would be understandable but now it will just send the wrong message. In India’s squad for the 3rd and 4th Test there is no vice captain mentioned unlike all the squad for the first 2 Tests where KL Rahul was mentioned as the vice captain. That is an indication that the selectors have their doubts. If KL Rahul does make way for Gill then it will be difficult for him to get back into the side.

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