KL Rahul struck his 11th century on the second day of the opening Test against the West Indies here — his first at a home venue since the ton in Chennai back in 2016, also against West Indies, and only second overall. Even during the England series there was a lot of chatter on why a batter of his skills hadn’t had a Test career that reflected it. And finally, he managed to put together an entire series of high-volume runs. But coming into the Test series against West Indies, he wanted to make the mental adjustment to enjoy the grind of batting in Indian conditions. To that end, Rahul said he has been working hard on running the singles and twos.
“Obviously when you travel abroad and play seaming swinging conditions with extra bounce, there’s a lot of challenge doing that. And when you come back home, when there are 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. 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,” Rahul said after the day’s play.
“Not sure really,” Rahul said when asked why a batter of his calibre has got just two hundreds at home. “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.” After Rahul departed for 100, Dhruv Jurel and Ravindra Jadeja also helped themselves to centuries.
Rahul is also enjoying the best year of his Test career, as he reached 649 runs in 2025 in just 7 matches and 13 innings, surpassing his tally of 2017 (633). He also bettered his previous best tally of centuries in a calendar year, scoring his third of 2025. In 2015, 2016 and 2021, he had scored two tons each.
Returning to action after the England tour in red-ball cricket, Rahul also scored a big hundred for India A against Australia recently in Lucknow, and that has certainly helped him in his preparation for the short two-match series against West Indies after the break post the tour of England. “Really enjoyed my batting. Playing in different conditions. England was fun. Obviously getting runs there gives you a lot of confidence and coming into this game with some runs behind me also helped. Feeling fresher after a longish break after the series. Yeah, I really enjoyed being back.
Asked if he was nervous, Rahul said, “No, not really. Because I just played a game last week (for India A). So yeah, I was a bit nervous playing there because I haven’t been on the field for a good 5-6 weeks. “So just to get back into that rhythm, just to get back into getting runs and spending time in the field and coming in day after day for 4-5 days is a bit of a challenge physically as well. The conditions here have been really, really challenging physically. The game that I played last week was even worse. So yeah, physically it’s been really challenging. But yeah, it’s good to be out in the middle and it was good for me to have that game and get some miles in me.”
Rahul scored exactly 100 in the first innings, getting dismissed right after the lunch break. He said the celebration after reaching the three-figure mark was for his daughter.
(With PTI inputs)
Stay updated with the latest sports news across Cricket, Football, Chess, and more. Catch all the action with real-time live cricket score updates and in-depth coverage of ongoing matches.
