LONDON: There was a lot of drama on the field in the dying minutes on Day 3 of the third Test between India and England here at the Lord's Cricket Ground with Shubman Gill and Co not amused with Zak Crawley's apparent attempts to delay the proceedings. In the end, the visitors could bowl only one of the two overs before the bails were drawn.
KL Rahul, who on Saturday scored a century to help India level England's first innings score of 387, spoke on the issue during the post-match press conference. "I understand from an opening batter's point of view. I know exactly what was going on and everyone knows exactly what was going on. But an opening batter will understand completely what happened in the last five minutes. Just in terms of the discipline that you need as an opener. Not necessarily to understand but just as an opener and to keep fronting up and doing it again and again," he told journalists at the end of day's play.
The Indian captain was all fired up and even had talks with the on field umpires. Rahul admitted it's a bit theatrics at the end. "I have seen him fired up but obviously we wanted to bowl two overs. There were six minutes left. Obviously, two overs is a no-brainer that any team will bowl two overs with six minutes to go. It's a bit of theatrics at the end. We were all pumped up either way because we know how difficult it is for a batter to come in to bat for two overs when you have been in the field all day. We were hoping we could get a wicket there and a wicket at the end of the day's play would have been perfect for us. Tomorrow, even without that, I think we would have been fired up anyway because that's where the game stands. We have two days from now on with both the teams probably back to zero. After three days of hard-fought cricket, it all comes down to day four and day five so we would have been fired up anyway. We will go out there and try to get ten wickets as quickly as we can and enjoy ourselves in the field," he said,
Speaking on his form during the series, the Karnataka batter said, "Yeah, I'm happy that I'm batting at the top of the order. I've always enjoyed batting at the top of the order. I've always batted there even in my junior cricket. In all my early days, I've always batted at the top of the order. So that's something that feels quite good and I'm happy being in that place. I'm happy that I'm making use of the opportunity and getting runs for the team."
Mental drills with experts behind batter's success
The India opener also informed that he has been working with an expert and doing a few mental drills for the last couple of years. "In the last year or so or in the last couple of years, I have worked on a few mental drills. I spent a bit of time with an expert who can help me with improving my reaction time. And some mental drills and games that you can play that help you get better with your reaction time and stuff like that. I think a lot of other sports use it. I've seen this in Formula One quite a lot. I picked this up from one of the guys that I worked with in Salzburg. I'm closely associated with Red Bull so I had the opportunity to go there and work with some of the coaches. That work with the elite Formula One guys and other adventure sports people who require a lot of this mental side of the game. So I've worked on that and I guess that's the only thing that's been different in the last year or so. I've always enjoyed batting long periods of time even when I was growing up. Even when I played junior cricket, I always enjoyed batting long hours and I could focus for long hours. I think a bit of that and a bit of this has just helped me in the last few years," revealed the right-hand batter.
Rahul spoke about his partnership with wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant and talked about what is common between the two. "The most common thing is our love for cricket and love for batting and love for performing in difficult scenarios. We've had a lot of important partnerships in the last few years. And I enjoy batting with him. I thoroughly enjoy batting with him. When he's batting with me I look at the way he bats and I wish and I hope that I could do that. Some days I'm sick when there are no games and dream of playing shots like that and playing with that kind of a mindset and an attitude. It's always just been a dream. We do chat quite a lot about cricket and batting and the technical bit of batting as well. He was injured in the NCA and we were both injured and we were at the NCA back in Bangalore and we would see each other every day. That's probably the first time I've realised there's a lot of thought behind how he bats. He's a deep thinker of the game, though it may not seem that way or suggest with the way he plays. But it's something that suits his game and that's obviously for me has been great to understand how he thinks and get a little bit of a deeper insight into his mind. That's probably it and we both get along pretty well. We're great friends off the field as well."
He admitted there was a sense of disappointment in the dressing room after India were bundled out for 387 despite the partnerships they had in the middle. "Yeah, of course there's a little bit of disappointment because I think we were in a really good position. Just before tea time, I think we were in a really good position. Obviously, me and Rishabh got that long partnership but he got out just before lunch and I got out right after lunch. That wasn't ideal. You had two set batters in the top five who'd gotten off to a start. Ideally, you want one of them or both of the batters to go on and get a big score. That's how you get ahead in the test match. So yes, that is disappointing. A lot of players got the starts and we couldn't convert it and get bigger scores. That would have put us ahead of the test match but as it stands, I think it's quite even."