Stats: KL Rahul and Murali Vijay rack up an embarrassing Test partnership record

The ongoing four-match Test series between India and Australia is currently level at 1-1 with two Tests at Melbourne and Sydney remaining to be played from Wednesday, December 26 and Thursday, January 3 respectively. Even as the visitors have had some joyous time in the series, the last few days have not been memorable for Murali Vijay and KL Rahul by any means.

Vijay made his comeback to the Test team after he was dropped midway through the series against England back in August. He was impressive in his maiden county stint for Essex after which the selectors decided to include him for the Australia tour. Nonetheless, The Tamil Nadu-born batter has flattered to deceive and has churned out scores of 11, 18, 0 and 20 at an average of 12.50.

Another dismal record for Rahul and Vijay

On the contrary, Rahul perished for single-digit scores in three of the four innings he has batted in with scores of 2, 2 and 0. The Karnataka batter looked good for the brief while in the second innings of the first Test in Adelaide Oval, scoring 44 runs. Nevertheless, yet another loose stoke led to his downfall. In the meantime, both openers have also created a shambolic partnership record.

Together, they have scored 543 runs together in 26 innings at an average of 20.88, which is the lowest for any opening pair, which has been involved in 25 or more partnerships. Albeit India are the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) number-one ranked Test team, they have had their issues, surrounding the opening combinations, especially in overseas conditions.

Earlier Shikhar Dhawan used to be their regular Test opening batsman. But he couldn’t score big and the selectors eventually lost patience with the Delhi batsman. Though reports of his comeback at the iconic MCG have sparked, there’s no official confirmation of the same. India currently has the likes of Prithvi Shaw, the teen sensation, and Mayank Agarwal as the other openers.

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