At that stage I was thinking about going and padding up – Rahul

KL Rahul Praises Bumrah, Deep After Avoiding Follow-on

KL Rahul, the Indian opener, praised the efforts of Jasprit Bumrah and Akash Deep as India avoided the follow-on just before bad light brought a premature end to the fourth day's play in Brisbane.

"It's very good to see when the lower order chips in and scores runs," Rahul said at the end of Day 4. "That's something that we discuss a lot in our meetings and the bowlers work really hard on their batting as well. So, yeah, it's really good to see that they could go there and get that little partnership and avoid the follow-on makes a huge difference, knowing that there's a bit of rain around and so much of the game has been lost to rain."

Rahul led the charge for India with the bat, stroking 84 while the rest of the top and middle order struggled. By the time India's last two batters found themselves in the middle, they were still 33 runs shy of avoiding the follow on.

Ravindra Jadeja had extended India's fight after Rahul departed, but when he was dismissed and India were reduced to 213 for 9, Rahul admitted that he was getting prepared to bat again.

"At that stage, I was thinking more about going and padding up and trying to go back to bat, probably. You don't know. I mean, I'm not sure if they would have enforced the follow-on. So, I was thinking about what I needed to do with my batting. But, like I said, it's always nice to see your bowlers going out there and scoring some runs."

Rahul praised the resilience of Bumrah and Deep, saying:

"They really put in the work in the nets. They work really hard. And when it mattered today, I'm happy that they could really play some shots and very exciting shots. And it was a great contest at the end. The last half an hour when they batted, not just the runs that they got, just the heart that they showed to keep away the bouncers. There's a lot of pace and bounce in the wicket.

"So, to get behind the ball, defend really well, leave the ball, hit some nice shots is really good. It will give them confidence and will give us as a group a lot of confidence."

Rahul also spoke about the communication with the last wicket pair:

"Yeah, it's very simple. Try and get those runs. Don't have to try and do it with a boundary. You can still knock it around, get those singles. They spread the field, so those singles were there to be taken.

"So, just to stay a bit more patient, because we saw just before the message went out, Akash tried to, I think, I don't know where he tried to hit it, but he tried to hit a boundary. So, just a message to calm it down and see if they can get five or six singles and get (to avoid) the follow-on."