India’s head coach Gautam Gambhir has put his weight behind under-fire KL Rahul ahead of the Border-Gavaskar series against Australia. Rahul returned with scores of 0 and 12 in the opening Test against New Zealand and he was dropped in the next two Test matches.

Furthermore, Rahul returned with scores of 4 and 10 in the second unofficial Test match against Australia A, which the home team won by six wickets. 

Rahul has scored 2981 runs in 53 Test matches at a below-par average of 33.88. Gambhir lauded Rahul’s versatility in all three formats of the game.

Gautam Gambhir said in a press conference on Monday, “KL Rahul can bat in the top order, he can bat at No. 3, he can play at No. 6. So, you need a lot of talent to do all these jobs, and he keeps (wickets) in ODIs. Imagine how many countries have players like KL!”

The chief coach added that Rahul is one of the contenders to open the innings with Yashasvi Jaiswal in the absence of skipper Rohit Sharma, who is all set to miss out due to personal reasons.

“He is one of the options (to open batting) if Rohit is not available (for the first Test),” he said in the press conference.

On the other hand, India can also open with Abhimanyu Easwaran in the opening Test. Easwaran registered scores of 0 and 17 in the second unofficial Test against Australia A. In the opening Test against Australia A, Easwaran was dismissed after scoring 7 and 12.

The opening Test match between India and Australia will be played at Perth from November 22 onwards.