Australia vs India 2020-21: Best combined XI of T20I series

KL Rahul as Opener 2:

Rahul is one batsman on which India are banking heavily in this tour of Australia. He had only a half-century in the ODI series and the fans were expecting him to come up with the same rich exploits he had in New Zealand early this year. Rahul also had a brilliant Indian Premier League recently and that added to the expectations even more. He started off well in the series but could not finish it off as he would have liked.

Rahul hit the first fifty of the T20I series by opening with Shikhar Dhawan. He slammed 51 off 40 balls to wrest the initiative to help India post 161 in an otherwise mediocre batting performance. In the second game, too, Rahul scored a brisk 30 (off 22 balls) to give India a steady start to a successful chase of 195. The importance of Rahul giving his side a solid opening was felt when he fell in the second delivery of the Indian innings in the third and final match in Sydney. The target was lesser than that in the second match but Rahul’s early departure gave India a crucial setback at the very start and the Men in Blue could not recover from that.

Rahul will be taking a key lesson from his performance in the T20I series and it is about scoring hundreds. He is very much capable of hitting big knocks in the shortest format although it was seen at times during the IPL this year that he tends to slow down in the middle. This is one aspect where Rahul is trailing the likes of Rohit and once he makes amends, there should not be any stopping for him.