India vs Australia - "Something I Am Working At": KL Rahul Opens Up On His Strike-Rate In T20Is

As India square off against Australia in the three-match T20I series, beginning Tuesday in Mohali, a lot of the focus would be on how KL Rahul performs with the bat in hand. In the recently-concluded Asia Cup, he managed to score 132 runs in five matches. However, with Virat Kohli scoring century in the Super 4 match against Afghanistan, there have been calls for opening the batting with Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. However, on Sunday, skipper Rohit confirmed that KL Rahul would open the batting in the T20 World Cup with Kohli being the third or backup opener.

When one talks about the shortest format of the game, KL Rahul's strike-rate has always been a point of debate. In 61 T20Is that he has played so far, the right-handed batter has a strike-rate of 140.91. However, there have been times when the batter has found the going tough, the match against Hong Kong in the Asia Cup comes to mind, where he scored 36 runs off 39 balls.

Rahul was asked about this issue ahead of India's first T20I against Australia in Mohali and he spoke elaborately on the issue.

"Look, obviously something that every player wants to work on. No one is perfect, everybody is working towards something, obviously strike-rates are taken on an overall basis. You never see when a batter has played at a certain strike-rate, whether it was important to play for him to play at 200 strike-rate or whether the team could have still won with him playing at 120-130. These are the things that no one analyses."

"Yes, it is something that I am working at, the roles that have been defined to each player in last 10-12 months have been very clear, everyone is working towards it. And, I am just working towards how can I better myself as an opening batter and how I can