Ahmedabad (Gujarat) [India], October 3 : India's stylish opener, KL Rahul, opened up about his Test century drought on home soil, which ended after nine years, attributing it to mentality following his sizzling exploits on the second day of the series opener against the West Indies in Ahmedabad.
Since his boisterous 199 against England in 2016 in Chennai, Rahul has gone through an unprecedented drought. For 3,213 days, the long-sought three-digit score continued to elude him on home turf. On Friday, the endless halt came to a sweet end after he notched a 197-ball 100, courtesy of 12 fours.
Following his landmark moment, Rahul joined Sunil Gavaskar (33 centuries), Virender Sehwag (22 centuries) and Murali Vijay (12 centuries) as the fourth member of the 10-plus century club as a Test opener for India. Gautam Gambhir and Rohit Sharma have managed nine centuries as Test openers for the country.
Since his last home Test ton, Rahul has become a central figure in the red-ball fold. He toured overseas and remained a fundamental part of some of India's famed series wins. The 33-year-old was quizzed about his eight-year, nine-month, and 15-day hiatus, and he initially struggled to identify the reason behind it, but hinted at the struggle to churn out boundaries on home tracks.
"Not sure really. But yeah, somehow I think the only thing that I've worked on in the last year or so has been maintaining my batting tempo. Just enjoying the phases that are not as exciting for me in my own head. Obviously, when you travel abroad and play in seaming, swinging conditions with extra bounce, there's a lot of challenge doing that. And when you come back home, when there's three spinners playing and the field's spread out, you really need to get your runs with singles. The boundaries don't come that easily," Rahul said after the end of the second day.
After realising the need to toil on the sub-continent track, Rahul switched his mentality to enjoying his time on the crease, scuttling for singles and converting them into a century. It didn't come naturally to him, but he had to work hard for it for the last year.
"So yeah, that's something that I've worked on and needed to make that mental switch to enjoy doing that, enjoy grinding and getting 100s with singles and twos as well. So that's something that I've worked on in the last year or so. And yeah, I think that's the only difference that I can see, and probably that's what I wasn't doing that well previously when I played at home," he concluded.
Rahul wasn't the sole centurion for India on the second day, with Dhruv Jurel (125) and vice-captain Ravindra Jadeja (104*) flustered the West Indies bowling unit. The swashbuckling efforts from the troika powered the hosts to 448/5 and a comfortable 286-run lead.
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