India vs England: In-form KL Rahul backs Pujara and Rahane to end their slump

India’s opener KL Rahul has backed his struggling teammates Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane to come out of their slump in form during the ongoing second test at Lord’s against England.

In his last 10 Test innings, Pujara has been without a fifty, looking a shadow of the player who was the architect of India’s 2019 Test series victory in Australia. On the other hand, Rahane has now gone seven innings since his last fifty, scoring five and one in his two innings in the five-Test series.

Moreover, captain Virat Kohli has also not been at his prolific best either in the series, but he showed signs of regaining his form with a fluent 42 in the first innings of the ongoing second Test at Lord’s.

“Pujara and Ajinkya are fabulous players and they’ve done the job for Team India every time the team was in trouble. They are world-class players. I’m sure they are hungry to go out there and score some runs and do the job for the team”, said Rahul after England reached 119-3 in their first innings on Friday.

Rahul continued his stellar 84 in the drawn Nottingham Test with an elegant 129 at Lord’s, where India were cruising at 267-2 before the middle order caved in and they were all out for 364.

He said facing the swinging ball in English conditions was not an easy task but was optimistic Pujara and Rahane would find ways to master the challenge.

“They are experienced players, they know how to come out of a couple innings where they have not scored runs,” said Rahul. “We need to accept that in England, we’d get good balls, and we’re not going to go out and score runs in every inning and in every game”, he added.