“Is This A Joke?,” Rahul Dravid Slammed For Giving Keeping To KL Rahul Despite Repeated Failure

The Indian cricket team had a disappointing start to the 3-match ODI series against Bangladesh as it lost the first match which was played at Sher-E-Bangla National Cricket Stadium, Mirpur, by 1 wicket.

Batting performance of the Indian squad was way below than what was expected from it as the whole team got out on the meager score of 186 in 41.2 overs after it was invited to bat first by the Bangladeshi skipper Litton Das in yesterday’s match. If we talk about Indian batting, only KL Rahul was able to put up a fight against Bangladeshi bowlers as he scored 73 runs (70 balls, 5 fours & 4 sixes) but he also became the villain in the eyes of Indian cricket fans as he dropped a simple catch of Mehidy Hasan in the 43^rd over.

While Indian batting and fielding were very poor, Indian bowlers put up a good show as they dismissed 9 Bangladeshi batters when their score was 136 but Mehidy Hasan and Mustafizur Rahman stitched 51 runs partnership for the 10^th wicket which is a record in terms of the highest ever partnership for the 10^th wicket.

However, there was one more thing which baffled Indian cricket fans and that was making KL Rahul keep the wickets. Rishabh Pant was released just before the match as advised by the medical team of the BCCI but no replacements were sought as KL Rahul was asked to keep the wickets and this did not go well with many fans including the commentator Harsha Bhogle.

Harsha Bhogle took to Twitter to express himself; he tweeted, “So, Rishabh has been released and Samson is in India! And back to KL Rahul to keep wickets when keepers are waiting for an opportunity and Ishan Kishan is there! I am quite confused.”

If you remember, the head coach Rahul Dravid also did wicket-keeping during his playing days which helped the team in adding more bowling options in the team but majority of fans are of the opinion that KL Rahul as a wicketkeeper is a bad idea especially when he has constantly failed against strong teams with bat. However, Harsha Bhogle also gives his insight over this new decision which has been taken by the team management as he tweeted that if KL Rahul as a wicketkeeper is a long term plan for team India, he should keep wickets in every game from now onwards and even in the IPL as well.

Here is what he tweeted, “If the long term plan is to look at Rahul to keep wickets at the World Cup, he must keep in virtually every game from now and, ideally, in the IPL”.

What irked cricket fans more was the dropped catch of Mehidy Hasan which was dropped by KL Rahul when Bangladesh was around 30 runs away from win. Here are some selected reactions:

#1

#2

#3

https://twitter.com/AyanMusk/status/1599402635328884736

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

#9

#10

https://twitter.com/smileandraja/status/1599402542722490368

The count of online users who believe that KL Rahul is the biggest fraud in the Indian cricket is increasing every day and it won’t be wrong to say that Rahul Dravid doesn’t seem to be the best coach for the Indian cricket team with the type of results we are getting. What do you say?