The long mane has replaced the close crop that KL Rahul sported on his first trip to Australia. A carefully maintained stubble sits suitably on the once clean-shaven face, and he has inked more tattoos since then than the number of Tests he has played Down Under. KL Rahul, who completes 10 years in international cricket in about three weeks’ time, having made his debut in the Boxing Day Test in December 2014, is on his fourth visit to Australia for a Test series and, incredibly, he has appeared in just six Tests!His debut Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground was a blur, getting out cheaply in both innings to uncharacteristically ungainly shots while batting at Nos. 6 and 3. In his second Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground, he returned to his favoured position at the top of the order and chalked up a fluent hundred to prove that he didn’t just share the name of his more illustrious state-mate, Rahul Dravid, but the quality of his batsmanship as well.Rahul, it was apparent then, was the next big export to Indian cricket from Karnataka after Dravid. The right-hander still remains one—having clocked more than 50 Tests and only the seventh and the latest to do so from Karnataka—but it’s a bitter truth that he hasn’t achieved his own level of expectations, let alone others’. A tally of 3084 runs at an average of 34.26 in 54 Tests is modest by any standard, and staggeringly low knowing the potential he possesses.“Everyone wishes for it, but I’ll have to get as many runs as the people that have their names on the stands,” says Rahul when asked if he wants to see a stand named after him at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, his home venue, after the KSCA decided to act on the long-held demand to honour state cricket’s stalwarts by naming the stands after them.
