K .L . R Ahul Game Changer Of The Year

Boxing Day, 2014. Having lost the first two Test matches, with the former being an agonising affair at Adelaide, the Indian cricket team was mulling changes in personnel.

Kannur Lokesh Rahul, on his maiden assignment as an India cricketer, was handed his Test debut in a game that turned out to be M.S. Dhoni’s final Test match. He had scored over 1,000 runs in the previous first-class season as an opener, but was batting way below at No. 6 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). He was a bundle of nerves.

India somehow saved the Test match, with Rahul admonished for trying expansive shots before he was set in both innings. At Sydney in the next Test, though, he found himself opening the innings, this time at the expense of Shikhar Dhawan (he had replaced Rohit Sharma at the MCG), and felt a sense of calm. He returned from his first international tour with his maiden Test century, and had a sense that he belonged.

Flash forward to early 2017, when Australia have beaten India at their own game in the opening Test match at Pune, out-batting and out-spinning the hosts in a massive 333-run victory. Rahul, in for an injured Dhawan, is a more regular member of the Test team and bats splendidly on a vicious second-day pitch amidst falling wickets until, suddenly, he jumps down the track to launch Steve O’Keefe into the stands but spoons it up for a simple catch to mid-off, which sparks a catastrophic batting collapse and sees him aggravate a shoulder injury.

Much like the experience during his first month with the Indian Test team, Rahul’s role in the team had been primarily of the third opening batsman, to be included in the XI in the event of an injury to a regular opener, or if a batsman was struggling with runs. But the series against Australia saw Rahul turn a corner, learn as quickly as he had on that first tour, come back and score game changing half-centuries that turned the series around in India’s favour as they went on to win 2–1.