The case of KL Rahul in Tests

It's unfair to talk about someone when they are not doing well. Therefore the intention of this blog is not rant on KL Rahul or his performances of late but to lend some statistical evidence as to why ordinary cricket fans like me are pining for a change at the top of India's batting order. I will also urge my readers to look up Jarrod Kimber's video which presents a very interesting take on KL Rahul's performances.

In order to help my analysis, I visited Cricinfo to garner some vital stats about Rahul's career. I looked at his overall numbers and came up with a scatter plot of his batting performances in tests.

Rahul's test career average from 2014-2023

Scatter Plot of KL Rahul's test performances from 2014-2023

When I analyzed Rahul's entire test career, 64% of his innings yielded less than 30 runs. 86% of these innings produced 20 runs or less.

Rahul's test scores' breakdown

When I confined my examination to his 3rd and 4th innings' scores, the occurrence of a low score increased to more than 70% and his average in these innings dropped to 23. If I remove his 4th innings rearguard of 149 from The Oval in 2018 as an outlier, then his average peters out to 19 with only three 50+ scores in the penultimate and final innings of test matches.

Rahul's 3rd and 4th innings' scores' breakdown

I also looked at the median score from his 81 test innings and that came out to be only 16 which means that 50% of his test scores have come for 16 runs or less. This is exactly the reason why Rahul doesn't inspire confidence in the Indian cricket fan who has consistently been let down in big match conditions in the past few years.

There's no denying the fact that the team management sees tremendous potential in Rahul but there's also no way around these simple stats I presented above. These numbers don't augur well for someone who has been groomed for sometime as this nation's talisman. It's time that India won an ICC trophy, we need someone whom we can solidly rely upon rather than rely on talent who look the part. Maybe, Rahul can still turn all of this around and win one for the home team. Until that happens, a change of guard at the top looks to be the natural step forward.

What are your thoughts? Whom do you think should take over from Rahul? Leave a comment!

Until Next Time,

Your Cricket Fan,

Chaitanya J.J.

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