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London (UK), July 13, 2025 (ANI): From partnership to Rishabh Pant to environment in dressing room, KL Rahul answered a range of questions after day 3 of India-England test match at Lord’s.

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00:00First of all, fair to say you've found a sweet spot when it comes to batting in English conditions
00:07and secondly, what happened in the last tour, if you can talk about that.
00:13Yeah, I'm happy that I'm batting at the top of the order and I've always enjoyed batting at the top of the order,
00:24I've always batted there even in my junior cricket and all my early days I've always batted at the top of the order
00:30so that's something that feels quite good and I'm happy being in that place.
00:36Yeah, so happy that I'm making use of the opportunity and getting runs for the team.
00:45And what happened at the end is, I mean, it's just part of the game now.
00:52I understand from an opening batter's point of view, I know exactly what is going on
01:02and everyone knows exactly what is going on but an opening batter will understand completely what happened in the last five minutes.
01:11Rahul here, to your left. Just in terms of the mental discipline that you need as an opener, not necessarily in England this time,
01:20but just as an opener and to keep fronting up and doing it again and again,
01:24is there any sort of routine that you have, any exercises that you do mentally to just make sure that your concentration stays throughout the innings?
01:31In the last year or so, or in the last couple of years, I have worked on a few mental drills.
01:44I spent a bit of time with an expert who can help me with improving my reaction time and some mental drills
02:01and games that you can play that help you get better with your reaction time and stuff like that.
02:07I think a lot of other sports use it. I've seen this in Formula One quite a lot.
02:17I picked this up from one of the guys that I've worked with in Salzburg.
02:23I'm closely associated with Red Bull, so I had the opportunity to go there and work with some of the coaches
02:29that work with elite Formula One guys and other adventure sports people who require a lot of this mental side of the game.
02:43So I've worked on that and I guess that's the only thing that's been different in the last year or so.
02:49But yeah, I've always enjoyed batting long periods of time. Even when I was growing up, even when I played junior cricket,
03:02I always enjoyed batting long hours and I could focus for long hours.
03:08But yeah, I think a bit of that, bit of this has just helped me in the last few years.
03:13Okay, you came in here as a senior most specialist batter on the side and now you've got two centuries and a half century in the other.
03:21So how happy are you with the consistency and sort of leading from the front as a specialist, I mean senior most specialist batter?
03:28Yeah, that's something that I've strived for all my career is to be consistent and perform on a consistent basis
03:37and be one of the guys on the team that, you know, the team can look up to and really count on.
03:43So I'm happy that, you know, the performances are coming through in the last few years.
03:48My mindset or my hunger or my passion towards the game has always been there.
03:54But yeah, in the last few years I think the performances are showing too.
03:58Kale, you and Rishab are both wicket-keeper batters but it seems like you have nothing else in common from your style to your demeanour.
04:09I'm taking offence to that.
04:11Oh no, no, no, I don't. I mean, oh now I feel bad.
04:15You know what I mean though. You have such different styles and demeanours.
04:20Do you have things in common on or off the field that maybe we don't know about?
04:28And what are the conversations or the way you work your partnership together that you have out there?
04:34Tough one. I think the most common thing is our love for cricket and love for batting
04:41and love for performing in difficult scenarios.
04:45We've had a lot of important partnerships in the last few years.
04:51And I enjoy batting with him. I thoroughly enjoy batting with him.
04:55When he's batting with me, I look at the way he bats and I wish and I hope that I could do that.
05:02Some days I sit when there are no games and dream of playing shots like that
05:08and playing with that kind of a mindset and an attitude.
05:11But yeah, it's always just been a dream.
05:15But yeah, we do chat quite a lot about cricket and batting and the technical bit of batting as well.
05:26He was injured and in the NCAA and we were both injured and we were at the NCAA back in Bangalore.
05:32And we would see each other every day and that's probably the first time I realized there's a lot of thought behind how he bats and a lot of...
05:44Yeah, he's a deep thinker of the game, though it may not seem that way or suggest with the way he plays.
05:50It's something that suits his game and that's obviously for me it's been great to understand how he thinks and get a little bit of a deeper insight into his mind.
06:01So yeah, that's probably it. And yeah, we both get along pretty well. We're great friends off the field as well.
06:08But yeah, common, yeah, very few things. Yeah, yeah.
06:12Rahul, hi. Well played. Rahul, is there a conscious effort because a lot of players, batters around you are a bit flashy.
06:21But we saw in fact lately that you've been restrictive perhaps. Even yesterday we saw, to start with, those drives, a majority of those did not reach the fence.
06:33You're just pushing, not going for those expansive drives. Are you trying to restrict yourself to build that long innings?
06:42No, I'm just trying to do what is necessary on that day and what I feel can give me the best result on that possible day.
06:50And yeah, for now I feel, for this innings I felt like that was the way to go.
06:56And when I'm opening the batting obviously I need to, there's a lot more responsibility for you to get your team off to a good start
07:04and make sure that you have a solid base set up for the rest of the batters to come or for you yourself to go ahead and score a big knock and get a lot of runs on the board.
07:13So yeah, that's more or less what I think about. There are pockets in the ground that I feel I need to score off and that can change with every wicket and every innings and every day.
07:25So yeah, it's about how I feel that day and what is the plan that I come up with in the moment in the middle and try and execute it.
07:34I think India won two out of the three sessions of the day's play, but is there a sense of disappointment in the dressing room?
07:44Because at one point it seemed like India could have got a lead of 50-60 runs, but at the end of the day it couldn't happen.
07:52So maybe a little bit of disappointment?
07:54Yeah, yeah, of course there's a little bit of disappointment because I think we were in a really good position when I think even till just before tea time I think we were in a really good position.
08:05Obviously me and Rishabh got that long partnership but we both got out, you know, he got out just before lunch and I got out right after lunch.
08:16That wasn't ideal, so you had two set batters in the top five who had gotten off to a start.
08:21So ideally you want one of them or both of the batters to go on and get a big score and that's how you sort of get ahead in the test match.
08:29So yes, that is disappointing. A lot of players got starts and we couldn't convert it and get bigger scores.
08:37That would have put us ahead of the test match but as it stands I think it's quite even.
08:44KL, the last over before lunch, the over which Rishabh got run out, he was egging you on to get that hundred.
08:51Even one ball which you played towards Vipa Gowri said, it's sida tha chokka lagda tha.
08:55Then he got out the way he did, so what were your thoughts then because you looked very disappointed standing there looking at the big screen when the replay was being shown.
09:04And second, since you spent a lot of time today batting with him with that injured finger, how difficult was it for him to actually hold the bat?
09:11Because there were certain situations where the bat was giving him that jarring experience and he looked in a lot of pain.
09:17So your thoughts on both things.
09:19Long question.
09:23Yeah, obviously not ideal and there was a conversation a couple of overs before that I told him that I'll try and get my hundred if possible before lunch.
09:40And with Bashir bowling that last over before lunch I thought it was a good chance for me to get it but unfortunately I hit it straight to the field.
09:48It was a ball that I could have hit it for a boundary but I hit it straight to the fielder and then I think he just wanted to rotate the strike and see if he can put me back on strike.
09:58But yeah, it shouldn't have happened run out at that stage.
10:05I think it really changed the momentum and it was disappointing and disappointing for both of us.
10:12Obviously nobody wants to throw the wicket like that.
10:17And what is the second part?
10:19One finger pain.
10:20Yeah, obviously he was in a lot of pain for gripping the bat and obviously when the ball hits your bat there's a lot of friction and he got hit on the gloves as well a couple of times which was not ideal.
10:38So yeah, he was in a lot of pain and he kept telling me that he was missing out on a lot of balls that he felt like should have gone for boundaries and he was very disappointed with that.
10:47But yeah, I just had to tell him to weigh his options and see what are the best shots he can score boundaries off rather than getting upset with the areas he can't score off.
11:00So yeah, he seemed pretty calm otherwise.
11:02Yeah, he was in pain but yeah, he was more than happy and more than willing to do the job and fight the fight for the team.
11:12Kael, Shubman seemed pretty fired up at that final over at the end.
11:17Have you seen him like that before?
11:18And do you expect tomorrow morning when you come to bowl again there'll be a bit more, you'll be any more fired up or will England get a bit more chirp from around the bat as a result of what went on this evening?
11:30Yeah, I mean, I have seen him fired up but obviously we wanted to bowl two overs, there were six minutes left.
11:40Obviously two overs is a no-brainer that any team will bowl two overs with six minutes to go but yeah, it's a bit of theatrics at the end and we were all pumped up either way
11:51because we know how difficult it is for a batter to come in to bat for two overs when you've been in the field all day and we were hoping we could get a wicket there
12:01and a wicket at the end of the day's play would have been perfect for us and yeah, tomorrow I think even without that I think we would have been fired up anyways
12:10because that's where the game stands. We have two days from now on with both the teams probably back to zero.
12:18After three days of hard pot cricket we, you know, it all comes down to day four and day five so we would have been fired up anyway.
12:26So yeah, we will go out there and try and get 10 wickets as quickly as we can and yeah, enjoy ourselves in the field.
12:32Kael, hi. You started by talking about the mental setup that you have brought, the kind of things that you're working on even in your technical path in 2021.
12:44Also, you had a great start to the England series where you scored a century here at the ground.
12:49Could you talk about you taking a leg-term guard in this series? What is the advantage of that? How did you work that out and how is that helping you?
12:58And what are the other changes that you brought in your technical setup for this series?
13:03No, I haven't honestly changed where I stand. My guard's always been the same. I stand there. Only in an ODI game will I stand on middle-stump but otherwise I've always preferred to stand there.
13:17Again, it changes sometimes. You use the crease based on the bounce of the wicket. Obviously, in England there's not as much bounce and LBW is a high chance for a batter to get out.
13:33So, yeah, I've always preferred staying there. It gives me freedom to move my arms better and watch the ball better and that's something that I've always done.
13:43So, I've not really thought about changing too much. Even in India, that's exactly where I stand. Only on a slightly bouncier wicket, maybe I'll change my guard.
13:54But it's simple. That's where I've stood. I've not changed that at all.

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