KL Rahul the new batting machine, emulates Azharuddin

India’s Test opener KL Rahul’s ton against West Indies has shown the bench strength of team. He has emerged as one of the talented batsmen on the Test scene in last year-and-half.  It was Rahul’s day on the second day against West Indies in Jamaica on Sunday.

The 24-year-old Rahul has a distinct record of scoring three Test tons in every overseas series that he has played. His first came against Australia in Sydney where he scored 110 in 2014. Then in 2015, he scored 108 in Sri Lanka in Colombo. And now he has one in West Indies too.

On Sunday, he reached the century-run mark with a clean six off Roston Chase over mid-on. He took 182 balls to reach the three-figure mark. He started off patiently on the second day and increased the momentum gradually.

With the century he has now surpassed Polly Umrigar, got the highest score by an Indian in his maiden Test innings in West Indies. Earler,  Umrigar had scored 130 in 1952-53 series. Rahul is the first Indian opener to score a century in his first Test innings in West Indies.

The 24-year-old is only the second Indian player, after Mohammed Azharuddin, to convert his first three fifties into centuries.

On all the three occasions that Rahul scored a century, he was inducted in as a substitute for injured or off-form players.

In Sydney, he replaced the out-of-form Cheteshwar Pujara while in Colombo he replaced an injured Shikhar Dhawan. The case was no different in Jamaica as he came in place of Murali Vijay, who suffered a thumb injury in the first Test in Antigua.