KL Rahul is set to make a comeback, and Sanju Samson was sent back home ahead of the IND vs. PAK clash in Colombo

• Set to make a comeback after a long injury break, Indian star KL Rahul donned the wicket-keeping gloves in his team’s practice session. 
• Back-up player Sanju Samson has been sent back home from Sri Lanka. 
• The decision to send Samson to India was taken after Rahul joined the Indian squad in Sri Lanka. 
• Rahu generally plays as an opener in Test and T20 game formats and plays in the middle order in the ODIs. 
• He made his international debut in 2014 against Australia. 
• Rahul is the first Indian cricketer to score an ODI century on his debut.  
• He is the fastest batsman to score an international century across all three formats. 

Set to make a comeback after a long injury break, Indian star KL Rahul donned the wicket-keeping gloves in his team’s practice session at R Premadasa Stadium on Friday. Rahul, who last played for India in March 2023, missed out on being part of the Playing XI for the first two Asia Cup matches as he continued to recover from a fresh niggle. But as he has now joined the Indian squad, back-up player Sanju Samson has been sent home.

Rahul trained with the wicket-keeping gloves in India’s first outdoor session at Premadasa. The 31-year-old went through various match scenarios with the gloves behind the wicket. He kept the wickets for 45 minutes and also did a wicket-keeping simulation. Rahul first stood behind the wickets as two support staff members displayed the batter and bowler’s duty to help him with the simulation. He was seen collecting the ball outside the off-stump and crouching without much discomfort.

The Karnataka star was also seen collecting the ball outside the leg stump and practicing stumping duties. He also kept wickets against a left-hander when Kuldeep Yadav was called into bat. However, the team management will have to make a tough call between Rahul and Kishan, considering the latter’s rise in recent times.

Meanwhile, according to a report, backup wicket-keeper Sanju Samson was sent back home from Sri Lanka. Samson was the backup of Rahul and Kishan as he seemed to fall behind the pecking order in the wicket-keeper’s role. The Rajasthan Royals skipper did not get to enter the main squad and was only the traveling reserve. The decision to send Samson to India was taken after Rahul joined the Indian squad in Sri Lanka.

Kananur Lokesh Rahul is an Indian international cricketer who plays as a right-handed Wicketkeeper-Batsman for Karnataka at the domestic level and is the captain of Lucknow Super Giants in the Indian Premier League. He is a former vice-captain of the Indian Cricket Team.

He generally plays as an opener in Test and T20 game formats and plays in the middle order in the ODIs. Rahul is a regular wicketkeeper in the shorter formats of the game at the international level as well as at the domestic level. He’s also one of the more prominent members in leading the discussion around the theory of strike rates being overrated in T20s.

He made his international debut in 2014 against Australia in the Boxing Day Test match in Melbourne. Two years after his Test debut, Rahul made his One-Day International Debut in 2016 against Zimbabwe. Later on, on the same tour, he made his T20I debut.

Rahul is the first Indian cricketer to score an ODI century on his debut. He is the fastest batsman to score an international century across all three formats, he took only 20 innings to achieve this feat.

(With inputs from agencies)