Lucknow: KL Rahul’s batting blends classical elegance with modern adaptability, making him a dominant force across formats. He starts with an open stance, right toe pointing to point, enabling fluid back-and-across movement. He transfers weight decisively, forward for drives, back for cuts while keeping a still head and bent knees for balance, and this all makes him a perfect man for his side Karnataka as well as for Team India.
Rahul’s Ranji Trophy exploits this season, including a half-century against Punjab in the last league match for Karnataka and a century against domestic giants Mumbai in the quarter-finals underlined his red-ball mastery. On Sunday too, he continued his fine run with willow in the semi-final against Uttarakhand here in Lucknow along with skipper Devdutt Padikkal, who also smashed an unbeaten century.
On a sunny day on a slow surface at the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium, temporarily the home ground for Uttarakhand, Rahul struck his 25th first-class century in style to give a sound start to eight-time champions Karnataka, which finished the Day One of the five-day encounter at 355/2. Rahul’s 141 in 211 was studded with 11 boundaries and five sixes.
Playing with soft hands early in the innings, Rahul showed a perfect control over late adjustments against seam as well spin before launching himself in a terrific way. Against pace, he played close to the body, minimized edges and versus spin, he danced down and used feet to smother turns, often opening the face for singles.
After striking his first boundary with a backfoot punch in the point region off Abhay Negi in the very third over of the day after Uttarakhand chose to bat first even after winning the toss, Rahul didn’t care about the kind of attack, including hosts top spinner Mayank Mishra while scoring his second century of this Ranji Trophy season.
Though he survived two easy chances, including one at 45 when stumper Saurabh Rawat missed an easy stumping off Mishra, Rahul held the innings together with Padikkal especially after an early departure of fellow opener Mayank Agarwal (5), who never looked settled in his 32-ball journey.
The two added 278 for the second wicket, laying a solid foundation for Karnataka to ride upon. In company of Rahul, left-hander Padikkal, who had an unbeaten century against Punjab this season, also showed his might with yet another unbeaten hundred.
Known for his elegant stroke play, Padikkal let his willow do the talking in a free-flow manner, hitting 236-b all 148 with the help of 16 boundaries and two sixes. He along with Karun Nair (37, 65b, 5×4, 1×6) added unbeaten 57 runs for the third wicket.
For Uttarakhand, the decision to field first, didn’t work out well on Day One as their trump card Mayank Mishra with 52 wickets to his name this season, looked a struggling a bit as both Rahul and Padikkal made good use of the slow nature of the wicket. Even after Rahul’s departure, Mishra could make a serious impact on Nair and finished with a figure of 18-1-88-0. On the contrary, India under-19 pacer Rawat while playing just his third first-class match, remained impressive with 2/73 in 14 overs.
Brief scores: Karnataka 355/2 in 90 overs (D Padikkal 148*, KL Rahul 141, K Nair 37*, A Rawat 2/73) vs Uttarakhand.
