I’ve been requested by crew administration to be able to preserve wickets in ODIs: KL Rahul

The Indian crew administration, headed by Rahul Dravid, has requested KL Rahul to be “ready to keep wickets and bat in middle-order” in ODIs going forward, the Indian vice-captain revealed on Sunday.

Rahul has sporadically stored wickets and batted in middle-order again in 2021 and within the first ODI in opposition to Bangladesh, he did don the massive gloves aside from scoring 73 runs.

This was after Rishabh Pant was rested from the ODI collection on medical crew’s recommendation.

Rahul dropped an aerial catch of Player of the Match Mehidy Hasan Miraj, which may have ensured victory for India relatively than the one-wicket defeat.

“We haven’t played a lot of ODIs in last 8-9 months but if you look at 2020-21, I have kept wickets, and I have batted at Nos 4 and 5. This is the role that team has asked me to be ready for in white ball cricket as I have done it before,” Rahul curtly replied when requested about Pant’s absence.

Rahul, who by advantage of being vice-captain, is part of the crew administration, nevertheless didn’t make clear whether or not Pant was rested due to workload administration or as a result of some niggle.

“When it involves Rishabh, I’m not positive to be trustworthy, simply discovered immediately, that he’s going to be launched. What the explanations are, medical crew will likely be in a greater scenario to reply these questions.

Rahul didn’t really feel that both batters or bowlers must be held answerable for this defeat.

“That’s cricket right. You have to expect the unexpected. As long as cricket has been played, these kind of things keep happening. They fought very well till the end and the couple of dropped catches and that innings from Mehidy.” He was personally happy after scoring runs on a difficult wicket.

“One of those days where it looked like I was timing the ball better (than others). The shots I picked fortunately went to boundary, every option that I picked went my way,” he stated.

“Such innings gives you joy as a batter as you are challenged and you put your hand up when team requires. Ideally, we should have got 40 runs more. I did fancy 230-240 if I batted till end or even if I could have batted till 40th over.”