Team India`s versatile batsman KL Rahul opens and shuts it!

“In the last couple of years, I’ve forgotten what my [batting] position is.” KL Rahul said this with a smile a few evenings back, seeking to take the edge off his remark and trying to make light of being asked to perform various roles at different stages in the last 18 or so months. But one could sense a relief at finally being allocated a settled spot in the batting order.

Versatile player

The 33-year-old is the most senior of the specialist batters in the squad in England, having made his Test debut in December 2014 and racked up 59 appearances since. One of his great strengths is his versatility — the ability to handle myriad challenges and bat at different positions — but it is precisely this virtue that became his bugbear.

Since the tour of South Africa in December 2023, when he also kept wickets on a full-time basis for the first time in Tests, the right-hander from Bengaluru has batted at No. 6, No. 4, been dropped from the XI, then pushed up to open the batting and returned to the middle-order, all in a frenzied 12-month period. He didn’t do much wrong in any of those positions — a century at No. 6 in Centurion, 86 and 22 in Hyderabad at No. 4 in Virat Kohli’s absence against England before picking up a series-ending injury, half-centuries in Australia as an opener in Rohit Sharma’s absence (Perth) and despite the skipper’s presence at No. 6 (Brisbane). Yet, he has remained the most expendable, the first to go out when someone else had to be fitted in.

Perfect team man

Now, more than a decade after batting at No. 6 and No. 3 in his first game at the MCG — the Rahul yo-yo isn’t a recent phenomenon — it would appear as if the opening batting slot, his preferred position even if he won’t scream so from the rooftops, is his for the immediate future. It’s as an opener that he made waves in the junior circuit and in domestic cricket. It’s as an opener that, in his second Test at the SCG, he scored his first Test hundred. Various team managements used him in different slots because it suited the team’s cause, but it didn’t help Rahul’s cause any, which partially explains a middling average of 34.70 after so many caps.

At Headingley in the first Test against England, Rahul invoked the calm, unflustered beast of 2021 that, alongside Rohit, played a significant part in India opening up a 2-1 lead in the five-Test series when the last match was delayed by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Batting with purpose and authority, enjoying leaving the ball and playing the senior statesman to the hilt, he followed up 42 in the first innings with a six-hour-21-minute 137 in the second. More than the runs, his calming influence got the best out of his much younger mates, a responsibility Rahul clearly relished. His challenge now will be to maintain consistency throughout the series. Especially now that he has been reminded (again) what his batting position is.

KL’s performances by batting positions in Tests

As opener…
Innings: 85
100s: 8
Runs: 2982
Average: 36.37

At No. 3…
Innings: 7
100s: 0
Runs: 112
Average: 16.00

At No. 4…
Innings: 2
100s: 0
Runs: 108
Average: 54.00

At No. 6…
Innings: 9
100s: 1
Runs: 234
Average: 29.25

This article first appeared on Mid Day