Rahul, the anomaly of Indian cricket

The 32-year-old has been team management's go-to fix for every temporary issue they have had in recent years

- GOMESH S

KL Rahul, the Test cricketer, can be hard to make sense of. As much as it is the same in the other two formats of the game, in Tests, Rahul is an anomaly for Indian cricket.

It is no exaggeration. A Test average of 33.87 after 53 matches, which does rounds on social media every time he fails, is unheard of for an Indian specialist batter. To put it into context, among players with 50 or more Test caps, Ravindra Jadeja has a better average than Rahul (35.16). In fact, apart from Kapil Dev (31.05), Syed Kirmani (27.04) and R Ashwin (25.92) who follow Rahul on the list, everyone beneath him have been picked for one specific skillset (bowling). Any other cricketer with such numbers would be nowhere near the national set-up.