KL Rahul received support from former Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar after the latter failed to take advantage of the opportunity in the second innings of the current Test against Bangladesh in Chattogram. On Friday, pacer Khaled Ahmed outplayed the 30-year-old, who made a strong start but was unable to turn it into a huge one.
Rahul appeared to be in extreme distress on multiple occasions as the speedster barraged him with short deliveries. His suffering came to an end when Taijul Islam at fine leg easily collected Khaled’s mishandled pull off a bouncer in the 23rd over. The cricketer left with a lot of disappointment after getting 23 runs and will now wait for the second Test to get back to his previous form. Manjrekar, a member of the commentary team, said that the opener doesn’t have any trouble facing short deliveries and that the time he misread one was an isolated instance.
“KL Rahul does not have a weakness against the short ball. But he got out trying to attack the short ball today,” said Manjrekar on air. Shubman Gill finally recorded his first century in Test cricket after a lengthy wait. Gill received criticism on social media for his performance in the first innings and was able to silence his detractors with a methodical century in response. The Punjab-born cricketer stepped up when KL Rahul was dismissed, scoring 110 runs before ultimately losing his wicket to Mehidy Hasan Miraz.
However, India continued to score runs even after then. Cheteshwar Pujara once again demonstrated why he is such a reliable batsman for India in the longest format after a fantastic performance in the first innings. After more than 1400 days, the cricketer finally had the chance to register a three-figure score as he, 34, concluded his innings on 102* from 130 balls. Additionally, Pujara’s century was his fastest in Test cricket (in terms of balls consumed). Bangladesh needs 513 runs to win the opening Test after India declared their innings at 252 for the day.
