'We have to give Virat Kohli and KL Rahul some more time' - Saba Karim opines on KL Rahul amid latter's poor run

Saba Karim, KL Rahul (Image source- Twitter)

KL Rahul marched into the Indian squad for the Zimbabwe series at the last moment. Shikhar Dhawan, the left-hander, was all set to lead India for the tour and the Karnataka batter was left out initially due to recovery from Covid-19. However, the 30-year-old had a poor run with the bat in the Zimbabwe series.

Fans on Twitter did not spare a thought before taking on the star batter for his poor batting and poor captaincy. Albeit India won the Zimbabwe series 3-0, India’s skipper for that series KL Rahul made some poor decisions. On the back of this, he was included in the Asia Cup 2022 squad and bagged a golden duck against Pakistan in the first match.

In the second match against Hong Kong, Rahul played a slow knock. He made 36 off 39 balls and it cost India a lot of runs as Suryakumar Yadav went out of the way to make up for it. Experts opined that the 30-year-old must be dropped from the squad for his strike rate. Now, former Indian cricketer and selector Saba Karim has opined on the batter’s form and said that he deserves a few more times.

I think KL Rahul is the only one who looks rusty: Saba Karim

The former selector highlighted that the Lucknow skipper was the only one who looked rusty. He lauded the Indian veteran Virat Kohli for his decent knocks and the skipper Rohit Sharma for his intent.

"I think KL Rahul is the only one who looks rusty. Virat Kohli played well in both occasions. If he plays one or two more matches we will probably get to see that old form. Rohit Sharma is not rusty. It is just that we have not been able to see the kind of scores that we expect from him," Karim opined on India News Sports.

The former player added that Suryakumar Yadav and Hardik Pandya played with the right intent. Saba Karim compared the duo with KL Rahul and said that the latter needed to emulate the same.

"We have to give Virat Kohli and KL Rahul some more time. I feel that is the only formula to win matches. In T20 cricket it is very important that batters play according to the demand of the format and the demand is to play the way Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya or Rohit Sharma played. We will get to see that in the coming matches," he concluded.