The curious case of KL Rahul

KL Rahul's class as a batsman is unquestionable. There is elegance in every shot he plays, and he is a batsman capable of playing across all formats. However, he has been in and out of the team, despite being the only batsman apart from Kohli to show consistency across all formats.

Throughout the span of his career, he has been in the shadow of Dhawan and Rohit in ODIs, and Vijay and Dhawan in the Tests. In the ODIs, it’s understandable, as Dhawan and Rohit are immovable at the top, but in Tests, his technique and temperament are much better than that of Dhawan, who generally scores well only at home or against weak oppositions.

Rahul first emerged at the international scene when Rahul Dravid complemented his technical brilliance, and said that he should be India's third opener for the Australian tour of 2014-15. Despite having a forgettable start to his Test career, he scored a strokeful century in the next Test at Sydney.

However, despite his obvious promise, he got chances only when Vijay or Dhawan were injured, and sat out most games.

IPL 2016 saw Rahul take giant steps as a limited overs batsman. He played some handy innings and that too at a brisk pace to back the world class top 3 for RCB which earned him his first ODI call-up for the Zimbabwe tour. In his very first ODI, he scored a century and became the first Indian to score a century on debut in ODI. After such impressive performances, he became the backup opener in ODIs and played most of the Test matches.

Rahul continued his dream run by scoring a boundary studded century in the first T-20 against England.

Irrespective of these strong performances, Rahul has not been given enough opportunities. With a brilliant IPL 2018 behind him, the team management needs to put enough faith in him, and give him enough chances to prove his quality going forward.