Indian team is eyeing a 3-0 lead against Australia in the Border Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) 2023. Men in Blue needs to win at least three matches in four-match series to qualify for the World Test Championship (WTC) Final. KL Rahul was replaced by Shubman Gill for the third test match.
Michael Clarke came in support of Rahul, Clarke expressed that he wouldn’t have dropped the Indian star batter if he was leading the side.
The former Australian skipper expressed his support for Rahul despite his recent failure-
“I really like KL Rahul. He is a great young man and an extremely gifted player. India is winning at the moment, so if I was the captain, I would be fighting for him,”
“I would be saying, ‘We are winning; I know he is not at his best, but we can afford to keep him on the team right now. He is a good player, he will train hard enough, and he is going to come back for us,” said Clarke.
Team India’s opener KL Rahul was struggling with his form and has not managed to go past 23 run mark in the last 10 test match innings. The Karnataka cricketer debuted for India in the longer format of the game in the 2014-15 Australia tour, he scored seven tons for team India in test matches with his last century in 2021 against South Africa in Centurion.
#ShubmanGill thaught that he is playing T20 or odi pic.twitter.com/ySi6C222r2
— Hemanth Kumar ??? (@hemanthkumar_62) March 2, 2023
“If the team is winning, I think he can keep players who aren’t performing well for a little bit longer. So I will be fighting for KL Rahul,” added the ex-Australian skipper.
Earlier, In the third test of BGT, India opted to bat first against Steve Smith-led side at Holkar Cricket Stadium in Indore.
The home side made two changes in the third game of BGT, Shubman Gill and Umesh Yadav replace KL Rahul and Mohammed Shami, while in the Baggy Greens playing XI, Mitchell Starc and Cameoon Green came in the place of Pat Cummins and Matt Renshaw. While Gill managed to score 26 runs in two innings of the Indore Test match.
Australia need 76 runs to win the third test match at Indore, while India was bowled out for 163 runs in the second innings. On Day 1, India managed to score 109 runs, while the Australian was bowled out at 197 before lunch on the second day. The visitors need to avoid a clean sweep in the BGT to qualify for the WTC final in England.