Apart from being India’s first loss in the 2022 T20 World Cup, the one thing that stood out in the Rohit Sharma-led side’s five-wicket defeat to South Africa on Sunday in Perth, was Kl Rahul’s form. The right-handed opener is yet to fire in the mega-event. His string of scores read 4,9 and 9 in the first three matches that India played. On Sunday, Rahul edged one to Aiden Markram at slip off Lungi Ngidi in the fifth over to of all for just nine off 14 balls.
The performance left former India star Farokh Engineer highly unimpressed.
“India need to quickly find some solutions after their chastening defeat to South Africa on Sunday. Their first problem is opening batsman KL Rahul who is terribly out of form. The way he was out, it was like he was giving catching practice. He just glided the ball into the first slip. An opening batsman doesn’t do that!” Engineer wrote in a column for Khaleej Times.
“I have a very high opinion of KL Rahul as a very, very capable batsman. But in this World Cup, he just hasn’t done anything. So are you going to replace him at this stage? Are you going to get Rishabh Pant to open the innings? I don’t know. I would like to pursue with him still because he is a good batsman, you cannot become a bad batsman overnight.”
After the loss, India slipped to the second spot in the Group 2 table with South Africa claiming the pole position with 5 points. The Proteas have won two back-to-back matches after their first game against Zimbabwe was washed out by rain. Their net run rate (NRR) is +2.772.
On the other hand, India have four points from three games. They had registered consecutive wins before the loss to South Africa in Perth. Their NRR is +0.844.
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Bangladesh are at the third spot in the table with as many points as that of India but their NRR (-1.533) is comparatively weaker.
Zimbabwe hold the fourth spot with an NRR of -0.050, Pakistan are fifth with an NRR of +0.765 and Netherlands take the bottom spot in the table with an NRR of -1.948.
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