Former Indian opener Aakash Chopra wants KL Rahul to score runs in the second Test match against Bangladesh because he feels the Indian opener is an amazing player. Rahul had scored 22 and 23 runs in the first and second innings respectively in the opening Test match against the Tigers.
Thus, he had gotten off to a start in both innings but he failed to convert them into big scores. Chopra reckons Rahul has been made the scapegoat whenever the team fails to do well by many experts. Rahul didn’t have a great run in the T20 World Cup and he received a lot of criticism from all around the globe.
Meanwhile, Rahul had led with aplomb in the first Test match as he was spot-on with his field changes and bowlers’ rotation.
Aakash Chopra said on his YouTube Channel, “There is nothing much to see from India’s viewpoint. You want KL Rahul to score runs because he is an amazing player. It is not that he has become a bad player but the environment in Indian cricket at the moment is that they are blaming Rahul whenever anything goes wrong.”
“They are asking when Rahul will get dropped. In India, when someone does well, we want the other one to be left out. We are so fickle-minded, we change our opinions so quickly. It seems at the moment that there is no player more ordinary than KL Rahul because that environment has gotten created.
On the other hand, Shubman Gill scored his maiden Test hundred in the second innings of the opening Test as he scored a fine knock of 110 runs. However, Chopra wants Gill to score big in the first essay of the second Test to set up the game for his team.
“I am looking for first-innings runs from Shubman Gill because you will need runs there. Cheteshwar Pujara – once again, a similar style. Runs from Virat Kohli’s bat. We were saying that Cheteshwar has scored a century after so many years.”
Furthermore, the former Delhi player is also expecting runs from the blade of Virat Kohli, who scored his last Test century against Bangladesh in 2019.
“The truth is that Virat Kohli’s last century came in the pink-ball Test at the Eden Gardens against Bangladesh in 2019. After that, a Test century has not come. He hasn’t played too much cricket as well but hasn’t scored too many runs in whatever he has played. So you expect runs from his bat, that he also scores a century.”
The second Test match will be played in Dhaka from Thursday.