If Robin Bist's crafty, unbeaten hundred on the fourth morning gave Rahul's first-innings score of 184 a run for its money, the South Zone and Karnataka batsman brought out an even better display of batsmanship to put Bist's century in the shade by stumps. When Rahul smacked Piyush Chawla into the stands at long-on to bring up his second century of the Duleep Trophy final, he pushed himself firmly into contention for a ticket to Australia for the Tests.
Rahul (batting on 121 off 132 balls) oozed authority and class after Bist had done all the hard work by batting with the tail and setting up a defendable target of 301 for Central Zone. Now, South just need another 117 runs with nine batsmen to follow.
Rahul maintained he had to concentrate harder to play out the initial moments of uncertainty in the second innings. His strike rate of almost a run-a-ball, though, sug gests a different story.
"I knew the first innings score of 184 was gone and concentrated harder. Both Pankaj Singh and Ishwar Pandey were bowling well with the new ball, and even with the reversing old ball on a pitch on which the cracks were widening.
"I told myself that I needed to be more positive once I got in because, who knows, the pitch could play all sorts of tricks on the fifth day. We needed to get as many runs as possible today and not let any new batsman walk in," said Rahul.
So out came the sweeps and reverse sweeps, as if to assert he has got more in his repertoire than the clean text-books shots. "As I said, the ball was keeping compara tively low in the second innings.
It wasn't easy to drive or play the forcing shots with the straighter bat. So I swept a lot to get on top of the ball and get the scoreboard moving," explained Rahul.
By the end of the fourth day he had demonstrated that he can bully pacers like Pankaj Singh and Ishwar Pandey on a decent domestic pitch, and also take the spinners to the cleaners. For the record, he has hit more sixes in this match (7) than what he had earlier in his first-class career.
Brief Scores: Central Zone 276 and 403 in 105.5 overs (Bist 112 n.o., Fazal 72, Saxena 71, Murtaza 50; S Gopal 460) vs South Zone 379 & 184/1 (KL Rahul batting 121)
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/followceleb.cms?alias=Robin Bist,Piyush Chawla,KL Rahul,Ishwar Pandey,Duleep Trophy final
Stay updated on the go with The Times of India's mobile apps. Click here to download it for your device.
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
KL Rahul stamps his class yet again
Dengan url
http://bijikacang.blogspot.com/2014/11/kl-rahul-stamps-his-class-yet-again.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
KL Rahul stamps his class yet again
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
KL Rahul stamps his class yet again
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar