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Batting coach Vikram Rathour heaped praise on ‘crisis man’ KL Rahul after his impressive knock in the tricky batting conditions at Centurion on the first day of the Boxing Day Test against South Africa. Rahul stood tall and held the fort from one end when Kagiso Rabada was running riot with a fifer.
The wicketkeeper batter who came out to bat at number remained unbeaten on 70 after facing 105 balls as his knock was laced with 10 fours and two sixes.
Rathour admitted that Rahul has managed to handle the tough situations in recent times for India.
“Rahul is turning out to be the man of crisis for us. Every time, there are tough situations, he is the guy who handles it well for us. Nothing special, he was clear with his game plans, defended the right balls, attacked the right ones,” Rathour said.
Rathour reckoned that overnight rain, drop in temperature and the track being undercover for one-and-half days added to the degree of difficulty the batters faced.
“It was always going to be challenging. The weather was an issue. The wicket was undercover for a day or more than that. It was always going to be challenging as a batting group. We would have loved to have a couple of more wickets in hand. But we have done reasonably well,” he defended.
“Post lunch, Rabada bowled an exceptional spell. We have to try and add as many runs as possible but as we have seen historically, this wicket deteriorates,” he reasoned.
South Africa also used the tactic of bowling on the ribs with a leg slip in place, something that had given them a fair degree of success when the Indians came here in 2021-22.
“Not very often but in the last series also there were 5-6 dismissals down the leg side. At lunch, they bowled 65 balls down the leg, if they bowled outside off, whether they would have got same success, that’s debatable,” Rathour said.
“Because of tennis ball like spongy bounce, it was a difficult delivery to control as you saw how (Shubman) Gill got out. I feel they used it as a tactic,” he added.
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