KL Rahul has spent every minute after his last IPL match preparing for the England tour and rightly deserves all the recognition coming his way for doing the "dirty job at all numbers" for India, said the team's former assistant coach Abhishek Nayar on Sunday.
Rahul finished as India's second-highest run-scorer in the five-Test series with two tons and two fifties, giving him 532 runs at 53.20 while forging a robust opening partnership with Yashasvi Jaiswal.
Nayar, who has worked closely with Rahul during his time as India's assistant coach till recently, said while he cannot reveal the changes the latter has made, he is pleased to see the desired results.
"I can't talk about the changes that I've seen in KL Rahul. I can't, because then it's out there and the effectiveness goes down a lot," Nayar, the head coach of Women's Premier League team UP Warriorz, told PTI in an exclusive interview.
"All I can say is that, whatever the changes are, they have really worked. Sometimes -- (and) I always say in a cricketer's journey and in a team's journey -- things need to click. You need a bit of the rub of the green. I think he's had that as well." Nayar said Rahul did not waste any time after the IPL to start preparing for England tour.
"He has worked very, very hard. There are a very, very few people who know this that after the birth of his child he was in the IPL (and) he came back immediately," he said.
"He started preparing for the (England) Test series while a lot of people wouldn't have done that. He knew the the importance of this series, he understood it." "And every minute post the last game that he played in the IPL, was about how he can do well in this Test series, so it's great to see him do well there and get the recognition that he rightly deserves being the guy who's done all the dirty jobs and still managed to perform at every every number in that batting order," he added.
"All in all, Indian cricket is in good hands and hopefully we wrap it up today (Sunday) and everything's good," Nayar said, talking about the fifth Test.
Nayar praised the character shown by the Indian team on this tour.
"A lot of the changes that you've seen in our players getting runs are also somewhere the conditions which have played a part, but also the fact that the hunger that our players have had to go out there and prove a point is on show," he said.
"The determination in the last game (Manchester), the fight they showed, it just tells you that the mentality that our players carry and the feeling that they have for Test cricket," he added.
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