My celebration after scoring century was message to everyone to shut out the noise: KL Rahul
Pune: After going through a lean patch in the T20I series against the visiting England side, Indian batsman KL Rahul struck form in the ODI series. KL began the ODI series with a well-timed half-century and followed it with a brilliant century in the second ODI that set the platform for the team to post a dominant 336/5 at the end of the innings.
Rahul came into bat when the Indian side was struggling at 37-2 with both the openers back into the pavilion and skipper Kohli on the other end. The duo formed a crucial partnership of 121 runs and laid a strong foundation for a big total.
Rahul scored his fifth ODI hundred before departing after scoring 108 off 114 deliveries. After completing his century Rahul displayed his ‘Monk-like’ celebration holding both his hands near his ears and closing his eyes.
Asked about the celebration after the innings, Rahul said it was a message for “everybody to shut-out the noise”. He further added that there are people who try to pull others down and that as sportsperson they need to neglect them.
Rahul faced criticism from several ends when he was going through a rough patch and fans and experts had questioned his place in the team ahead of other players waiting in the wings.
“It is just to shut out the noise, not to disrespect anyone. There are people out there who try to pull you down, at times you need to neglect them. So that's just a message to shut out that noise” Rahul said at the mid-innings interview.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
