IND vs ENG: 'KL Rahul didn't score century like Gill, Jadeja, Sundar but ...' - Former India cricketer Irfan Pathan after 4th Test draw

Former cricketer Irfan Pathan has praised KL Rahul for his crucial role in India's draw against England in the fourth Test at Manchester.KL Rahul stepped up as a senior player in India's inexperienced team, especially with the absence of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.

He moved to the opening position and faced 328 deliveries, accounting for over 54 overs out of India's total 257.1 overs in the Test.Rahul's promising starts in both innings didn't translate into centuries. In the second innings, he was dismissed by England captain Ben Stokes for 90 runs, just 10 runs short of a hundred.

Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!"KL Rahul played 98 balls in the first innings and more than 200 balls in the second innings.

He almost played 328 balls across both innings. He has played a massive role in the draw. However, he didn't score a century. Gill, Washington Sundar and Ravindra Jadeja scored a hundred each," Pathan said on his YouTube channel."But KL Rahul has become such an important player in the Indian Test team in the past few years, and he deserves it. He is a senior player of this Indian team, and he plays with that responsibility.

I have said this before: if leaving the ball is an art, Rahul is the artist."

Rahul has achieved a significant milestone by becoming the second Asian opener to score over 500 runs in a Test series in England, following Sunil Gavaskar's 542 runs in 1979.He is also the second visiting opener in the 21st century to reach this milestone in England, after South Africa's Graeme Smith who scored 714 runs in 2003.In the current series, the 33-year-old Rahul has accumulated 511 runs across four Tests. He maintains an impressive average of 63.87 with a strike rate of 51.20, including two centuries and two half-centuries.