‘Coach and captain want to give certain players a longer rope’: KL Rahul reveals India’s 2027 World Cup plans

KL Rahul (Image credit: BCCI) NEW DELHI: India batsman KL Rahul says he is working on improving his game against the old ball to help the team score more runs in the middle overs.Rahul spoke to JioStar after scoring 129 off 87 balls in the third ODI against West Indies. India posted 351 but the total was not enough as the visitors got it in 48.2 overs.India have already won the series after the first two games.Rahul said batting in the last 10 overs becomes difficult when the ball gets old and starts to reverse swing.“It wasn’t easy to get 80-90 in the last 10 overs. The ball is getting reverse swing and even in this game, once the ball has gotten old and soft and started to turn, you don’t feel confident enough as a batsman to go for long and deep mid-wicket if it’s a big boundary on that side,” he said.

‘I try to play with softer, older balls’

Rahul said he is now working on finding ways to attack the older ball, especially as he naturally prefers to face the harder ball.“…I like the hard ball coming at me, I can use the pace. So that’s something I’ve been working on, I’ve been trying to play the softer, older balls and I’ve been able to hit sixes with it.”“I’m constantly trying to improve my own game, understand my role, understand what a number five and six batsman needs to do to perform consistently for the team,” he added.

India want to push for 370-380

Rahul also spoke about India’s preparations for the ODI World Cup in South Africa next year.With teams regularly chasing big totals, Rahul said 340 or 350 is not always a safe score anymore. He believes that the Indian middle order needs to find ways to score faster and take the team towards 370 or 380.West Indies were chasing 352 in 48.2 overs in the third ODI. Chasing a record 406 in the second ODI in Guwahati, India also completed the chase in just 43.2 overs.“We don’t want to stray too far from the plan but also experiment a bit as a batting unit. The target so far has been about whether we can score 330-340 batting first, but we see 340 and 350 very easily achieved in one-day cricket,” he said.“So how can batsmen, once they’re set, continue to push and get 370 and 380, or push for 400 on a given day. The moment we come in as middle-order batsmen, the aim is to make sure we don’t take too much time to get going and start rotating the strike and keep hitting the boundary every six or seven balls.”“The coach and the captain have been very clear about the personnel they want to bring in. They want to give a longer rope to some players who we think could be important for the World Cup,” he explained.

Rahul wanted more time in the middle

Rahul has been batting at No. 5 or No. 6 for some time now. He said his 129 against West Indies was important because it allowed him to spend a long time at the crease and test the changes he is making to his bat.“I wanted to spend more time with the bat in the middle and the last time I really got to bat for a long time in ODI cricket was in the middle order against New Zealand at the beginning of January this year and I haven’t really had much time to play long innings since then.

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Share an opinion“And next year is a big one, the World Cup starts in October, so it’s important for me to get some valuable batting time because I’m trying a few things off the field and I want to test it in the game.“And only then will you know if the work you’re putting in behind the scenes is working or not or what I need to do differently. So yes, it was important for me to get some batting time,” he said.