JOIN USNearly 12 years ago, a skinny 10-year-old lad approached Samuel Jayaraj with the ambition of playing for Mangalore Zone’s under-13 team.
Jayaraj, a coach with the KSCA Academy, wasn’t particularly impressed with K L Rahul then. A hard-working but largely one-dimensional opening batsman — that was his initial assessment. However, a year later Jayaraj had to change his view after Rahul notched up two double hundreds in the under-13 zonal touraments in Bangalore.
Since then, their bond has only strengthened — Rahul the ever-improving ward and Jayaraj, the silent, motivating force.
Jayaraj remembers the twin double tons as the first spark Rahul displayed. “The improvement he made over one year was tremendous. Of course, as a kid he had lot of patience and concentration. In fact, he loved batting for long hours and it was a struggle for me to take him away from the nets. But I never thought of him maturing so fast and improve at that rate as a batsman. Suddenly, he began to amass big scores.
“In that tournament in Bangalore, Rahul made two back-to-back double hundreds at NRI grounds and at the M Chinnaswamy stadium. (Rahul) Dravid was watching the knock at the Chinnaswamy. He came to me at the end of the day and said: ‘Look after this kid. He’s special.’ Since then Dravid too has kept a close eye on his progress, often giving valuable advice to him,” said Jayaraj.
However, sticking to Mangalore has its own disadvantages for a budding cricketer, and Jayaraj advised him to move to Bangalore. Soon, he was rewarded with a place in the Vultures Cricket Club. Rahul’s relocation meant that Jayaraj lost a chance to train him personally. But he ensured that his disciple would enter capable hands, and asked former Karnataka players GK Anil Kumar and Somsekhar Shiraguppi to take Rahul under their wings.
Anil and Shiraguppi fine-tuned Rahul’s technique, particularly his backfoot play. Soon, Rahul added backfoot strokes such as square cut, pull, hook and punch through the covers, becoming a well-rounded, all-weather opening batsman. A strong run in domestic cricket last year that saw him amassing 1033 runs to become the second highest run-getter behind Kedar Jadhav has triggered comparisons with Dravid.
For those with eyes for quirky facts, this Rahul, just like his senior, has kept wickets at junior levels. Jayaraj said this has helped him to become a better batsman. “At the nets, I used to make him keep wickets, though later he stopped doing it regularly. As a wicketkeeper you need a lot of patience and need to watch the ball closely. A batsman, especially an opening batsman, need those qualities and I think it helped Rahul to take his batting to another level,” said Jayaraj.
Rahul made his State debut in 2010 against Punjab at Mohali, and a 61 in the second innings made it a good beginning. Fifties came in heaps later too. But he couldn’t convert them into something more substantial and his watershed season came in 2013-14. Rahul admitted it was the turning point. “There was a lot of clarity within the team as an opener and I kept things simple and enjoyed my batting. It helped me to score runs, and yes, this last season instilled a lot of confidence in me. But a national berth was not in my mind,” said Rahul on Monday after his selection to the Indian team.
Before the Duleep Trophy final against Central Zone at Feroz Shah Kotla a fortnight back, Rahul realised that his name was in the reckoning for the Indian squad set to tour Australia in December. “He called me before the Kotla match, and I told him not to worry about getting selected to Indian team and things like that, and do your job that is to score runs with a free mind,” said Jayaraj. Rahul, indeed, did that, making back-to-back hundreds, though in a losing cause. “I was really sad because South couldn’t win even after Rahul’s brilliance. It was a tearful thought.”
The next call conveyed to Jayaraj that his protege is Australia-bound. This time too his eyes welled up, but with tears of joy.