'If he wants to cement his place in Test team...' - Star India batter fires brutal warning to KL Rahul ahead of Australia series

KL Rahul (Source: Twitter)

KL Rahul’s form has been on the wane across all formats, and more so in Test cricket. He has had a year to forget in the longest format of the game as he has scored just 137 runs in his eight innings at an average of 17.12. What is more intriguing is that out of those 137 runs, 57 were scored in the two-match Test Series Bangladesh.

Though he did a good job as captain and led the team to a commanding 2-0 series win against Bangladesh, huge questions were raised about his form and Dinesh Karthik has been very vocal about it. He has fired a blunt warning to Rahul ahead of the four-match Test series against Australia in February.

“I would give KL those couple of Test matches, but if things don’t go KL Rahul’s way… The one thing that does go against him is the fact that he has played over 40 Tests and his average is just mid-30s. That is not acceptable for an opener. That is one of the lowest among Indian players for sure, who have played 35 Test matches," he said on Cricbuzz.

Scoring runs will be on his mind- Dinesh Karthik on KL Rahul

Rahul has been India’s fulcrum at the top of the order, alongside Rohit Sharma. The right-handed batter put on noteworthy performances in 2021 in England. Karthik said that if Rahul is not able to get among the runs against Australia, he should be benched and Shubman Gill should be looked at.

"That is something that he needs to definitely work on. That will be on his mind. If he wants to cement his place in the Test team, he needs to get a couple of hundreds against Australia. Otherwise, you can definitely see a change, with Shubman Gill doing so well," he added.

It will be interesting to see whether Rahul’s fortunes change in the upcoming series against Australia, and what will be the stance of the Team management if he fails to score big in the series. There has been a lot of talk about Rahul retaining his place in the XI only because he has been the vice-captain of the Indian side.