Team India’s senior star KL Rahul has opened up about his changing role in the Test team. Rahul has come a long way since his early days when he made his Test debut as a youngster during the 2014 Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia. At that time, he was the junior-most member of the team but now he is one of the most senior players in a team that is captained by 26-year-old Shubman Gill. His role has naturally changed over the years and as the next generation of Indian stars is starting their careers, Rahul knows it is his duty to guide them.
However, KL Rahul also feels that being senior does not mean you cannot learn from juniors. He said that the Indian Test dressing room is an open place where everyone can talk and learn from each other and there is no senior-junior hierarchy.
After India’s 165-run win over Sri Lanka in the Galle Test on Wednesday, KL Rahul said that it is every player’s duty to help his teammate, no matter how old he is or how much experience he has. He gave his own example from the Indian team. He said that even when there were players who had played 60 or 70 Test matches and he had played only 20 or 30 matches, there was no ego. Senior players had no shame in learning from him and he also never felt scared to go and talk to players who had played many more matches. He said the dressing room has always been open and everyone learns from each other.
KL Rahul says that the same culture continues even now as the team has changed. He adds that senior players can also learn a lot from new players because their methods and thinking can be different. He gives the example of Yashasvi Jaiswal and says that now he himself talks to Jaiswal about how to play sweep and reverse sweep shots and what he thinks about it, and Jaiswal shares his thoughts.
For KL Rahul, such conversations are very normal in the Indian dressing room. He says that players constantly talk about the different challenges which batters face in Test cricket, like how to handle swing and seam bowling and how to face bowlers who bowl at 150 kmph. As per him, the chat is constant and one gets to learn so much because everyone’s mindset is a little different from each other and this has always been the case, not just in the current dressing room.
That is really a good environment in the Indian dressing room.
