‘In the shadows of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli’ - Aakash Chopra reflects on KL Rahul’s fate

Former India cricketer Aakash Chopra recently came forward and highlighted how unlucky KL Rahul has been throughout his career. He pointed out that Rahul will always be under the "shadows" of his teammates Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. 

India’s upcoming assignment is a two-match Test series against Bangladesh; both sides will lock horns in the first Test from September 19 in Chennai. The BCCI recently announced the squad for the first Test, and KL Rahul was included. Talking of his potential inclusion, Chopra expressed his thoughts on Rahul’s future in the Indian team and what the future holds for the star batter. 

"I personally like KL Rahul as a player. He will have to score runs. If he keeps scoring runs, he will keep moving forward. His fate is that he will always be in the shadows of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. These are the big guys. I feel Rahul is super talented, super skilled," Chopra said in a video on his YouTube channel. 

"Future - he will keep playing until he keeps scoring runs. Although the team rates him very highly, an atmosphere gets created against him very quickly in Indian cricket. There are plenty of people who go after him, so he won't get as long a rope as you would give to anyone else with the same caliber or pedigree. If it's up to me, I would definitely give it because he has scored a lot of runs and difficult runs," he added. 

Throughout his career, Rahul has played 199 international matches across formats, and has scored 7979 runs He is a regular for the side in Tests and ODIs but has not been favoured recently in the shortest format. With India preparing for the Bangladesh Tests, KL Rahul will expect to compete with Sarfaraz Khan for a place in the playing XI for the first Test.