Lokesh Rahul, the 21-year-old wicketkeeper batsman, now part of the India Under-23 squad, cracked a fluid unbeaten 93 as his side defeated Pakistan Under-23 to win the inaugural edition of the Asian Cricket Council’s Emerging Teams Cup Tournament. He is catching the eye of his namesake Rahul Dravid.
by BIPIN DANI
Rahul’s personal coach in Mangalore was also very happy on Sunday. “We were told that the wicket in Singapore was slow and outfield was heavy. It was important for the boys to stay at the wicket rather than going for lofty shots”, Samuel Jayraj Muthu said.
“Lokesh Rahul has bright prospects ahead. If he continues to perform well, he can make it to the senior team. He has already proved his class in A team. Now his next destination is to get place in Team India”.
“He came to our academy when he was only 10 years of age. His first year was not fruitful but he continued to improve thereafter. He scored two double hundreds in the second year”.
“His performance was closely monitored by Rahul Dravid”.
“Mangalore has produced few bowlers but not classy batsmen. Raghuram Bhatt, Umesh K. and Vinay Kumar (not the present Indian player) are few of the bowlers our district has produced. Now Lokesh Rahul is our hope in batting”, the coach concluded.
The Rahul family had hoped for a century but now his father has no regrets as team won the match.
“To be honest, yes, we were expecting him to score hundred today, but have no regrets. Winning the match was more important than the individual score”, the father, Prof. KNL Lokesh said from Mangalore.
“Me and my wife (Rajeshwari) were following the match on website and are elated with his performance to-day. Indian team had a low score to chase and enough overs to face. But ultimately India won the match, that too against Pakistan is important”, he added.
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Bipin Dani
He has toured UAE, Sri Lanka, Morocco and Malaysia, to name a few, and contributes to a large number of newspapers in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
His twitter bio reads: Eat cricket stories, drink cricket stories, sleep cricket stories.
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