KL Rahul continuously impresses in his new dual role as a wicketkeeper-batsman. However, the former Indian opening batsmen, Gautam Gambhir and Aakash Chopra want to see him only in the top-order batsman role.
A year ago, KL Rahul was struggling to find a spot in the national team. But after performing superbly in the IPL 2019, Rahul showed his improvement in the national team and performed well in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019. Since then, he has maintained consistency in his batting performances in the limited-overs format.
Meanwhile, MS Dhoni is not playing cricket since the semi-final of ICC Cricket World Cup 2019. So, there is a vacant for the limited-overs wicketkeeping role. The team management has hugely worked with the youngster Rishabh Pant to fulfil that big gap. However, the youngster has failed to impress due to his inconsistent performances both in batting and wicketkeeping.
KL Rahul impressing both as a batsman and wicketkeeper
Before the team management starts their proper experiment with Sanju Samson, the situation forced KL Rahul to wear the wicketkeeping gloves. Since then, Rahul has impressed in the dual role. After handling the home ODI series against Australia, KL Rahul has continued the dual role in the limited-overs series in the ongoing tour in New Zealand.
In batting, KL Rahul is playing brilliant cricket in all positions – opening, other top-order or middle-order. He won the Player of the Series award in the recently concluded T20I series in New Zealand for finishing as the most run-scorer in that five-match series. In that series, he batted as an opener in the absence of Shikhar Dhawan and scored 224 runs (average 56.00).
However, in the ongoing ODI series in New Zealand, Rahul came to bat at the no.5 position and scored a firing 88 not out off just 64 balls (3 fours and 6 sixes).
But, Gautam Gambhir and Aakash Chopra both believe that KL Rahul is best for the top-order batting. They also believe that Rahul shouldn’t continue wicketkeeping at least in the ODI format as it will affect in his batting.