11 November,2014 08:34 AM IST | | PTI
It was during the Vijay Hazare Trophy match that KL Rahul got the news of his selection in the Indian Test team for the tour of Australia but he was only concerned about winning the ongoing match at that time
Lokesh Rahul
New Delhi: It was during a drinks break of the Vijay Hazare Trophy match between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka today that KL Rahul got the news of his selection in the Indian Test team for the tour of Australia but he said he was only concerned about winning the ongoing match at that time.
"We were fielding against Tamil Nadu today (at Secunderabad) when the substitute fielder came at the drinks break to inform me about my selection and also that Robin (Uthappa) and Vinay (Kumar) have been included in the One-Day squad against Sri Lanka. It felt nice as we also won by big margin," soft-spoken Rahul told PTI today.
For Rahul, although selection in the Indian team is a big thing, he was not under any extra pressure when he played the Duleep Trophy final in the Capital recently scoring 185 and 130 in the two innings against Central zone.
"Frankly speaking, I was not even aware that selectors were present. Also I was more into a zone where I wanted to score a big hundred. On the opposite there was Pankaj (Singh), who has recently played Test match for India, there is Piyush (Chawla), who has played for India and Ishwar (Pandey), who was with the national team. So it was a potent bowling attack.
"Also at the back of my mind, there was one thing. I knew that I have to play without pressure as this was certainly not my last chance to impress the national selectors," said the 22-year-old, who has scored 2100 in 27 first-class games at an average of 51.21 with six centuries to his credit.
Australia will be completely different ball game and Rahul knows that he will have to prepare well in the interim for the tough test ahead.
