India pass first Test by resisting urge to kill goose in search of golden egg

Because one of these ‘reports’ suggested that KL Rahul was in for a Test recall. These reports - or rumours, rather - had been floating around for a good month or so, but when Rohit blew his calf in the final T20I, they started circulating vehemently. I mean, you could understand why. It would have made all the sense in the world for India to reintegrate Rahul into the Test side.

He was a cricketer who was at the peak of his powers - he just bagged the Man of the Series award in the T20Is against the Kiwis after mauling Australia, West Indies and Sri Lanka at home - and having been in New Zealand for a good month, he was already acclimatized to the conditions. You know they say ‘when you’re in the zone, you’re in the zone’?  When you just can’t stop being good at what you do? Yeah, that. This was the zone that Aaron Ramsey found himself in, in the first half of the 2013/14 PL season - where he was netting goals against anyone and everyone - and the one Dominic Thiem found himself in during the mid-half of the 2016 season when he was winning titles on grass courts. 

Rahul, when the squad was announced, was in the zone. He was invincible and untouchable and you felt like he could not just walk, but run on water. So I was pretty damn sure - and concerned - that he was certainly going to be picked in the squad, especially after what happened to Rohit. But at 8.15 am in the morning, after scanning through the entire list of players, I finally breathed a sigh of relief. Yep, Rahul’s name was missing from the team’s 16-man squad that included the names of both Prithvi Shaw and Shubman Gill. It would have been easy for them to ride the wave and take the Rahul route, but they didn’t. ‘Well done, India’ I thought to myself. 

It does seem silly that I, for one, am being concerned about Rahul being re-integrated into the Test setup when he’s in the form of his life, but there are plenty of reasons for me to be against his selection. Rahul, for his own good, needed to be left out of the side, and it has nothing to do with how good a batsman he is against the red-ball. It is purely down to the fact he, throughout the course of his career, has been someone who has thrived on confidence.

Whilst for many cricketers, confidence has been a mere snack, for Rahul, however, it has been the whole damn meal that he’s been eating on a daily basis for survival; it has taken him to the highest of highs and has also been the primary reason for him hitting the lowest of lows. Given his recent run of form, it would have been easy to get carried away, be greedy and cash in on it. But the truth is, it was not a risk worth taking. India, at this point in time, can ill-afford to even give the slightest of openings for Rahul’s confidence to potentially jump off a cliff, for there’s far too much at stake.  

And it is something that has happened in the past. We all remember the monstrous home season that he had in 2016/17 - where he followed up his 199 against England with 7 fifty-plus scores against Australia - but an injury and three months later, he went on a run where he managed to score just 3 fifties in 16 innings across formats. We all remember the horror run he had in 2018 since the start of the England Tests - where he registered one fifty-plus score in 25 innings - yet, it was only a month prior to it that he’d scored his second T20 ton against England, before which he had his best IPL season till date. Confidence, like trust, takes only a second to shatter, albeit taking an eternity to be built. And for all we know, four good balls across two Tests could be all that’s needed to send Rahul’s confidence crashing into the ground.  

And Test cricket can be cruel, ask Jason Roy. A batsman coming on the high of a World Cup win - where he’d averaged over 60 - over the course of 5 Tests, was humiliated to the extent that he was made to forget the World Cup triumph, with him wanting to be as far away from the game as possible. Or ask Rahul himself, for that matter. It was only a year ago that he’d become a running joke in the cricketing community, with his own countrymen unanimously wishing that he’d never play for the country again. That he managed to recover it from it and is currently standing tall is a testament to his mindset, talent and ability.

But with the World T20 lurking - where Rahul would India’s single biggest weapon heading into the tournament - and with the team having plenty of other options in the longer format at their disposal - be it Shaw, Gill or even Priyank Panchal - it would have made all but little sense to integrate Rahul into the Test set-up in the New Zealand series. Another underrated aspect, and a highly overlooked one, is also his workload management, which has increased manifold over the past couple of months owing to him taking up the gloves.

With Kohli all but confirming Rahul is now India’s #1 choice behind the stumps, it would have been pretty naive and inane of the management to have asked the Karnataka man to play Tests, especially given his injury record. It is also to be noted that Kohli and Bumrah - and Rohit and Shami, to an extent - as of this moment, are currently the only all-format players in the team. But while the two of them, in the past,  have been given ample rest and will be continued to be handled cautiously, with care, the same cannot be expected for Rahul, who still, in a way, is stamping his authority in the team. 

It could have been so easy to give in to the temptation, lose the plot and kill the goose in search of the golden egg. But the management, you have to say, have made the right call by resisting the urge to pick Rahul for the Tests. He will play Test cricket in the future, he will score runs, win matches and who knows, maybe even lead the side someday. But that can wait. For now, India’s primary focus should be wrapping Rahul in cotton wool until the World T20, and by leaving him out of the Test squad, they have taken the first step towards doing so.