India vs Australia | Mayank Agarwal is an absolute beast, claims KL Rahul
KL Rahul has lavished praise on Karnataka and India teammate Mayank Agarwal who made his national team debut against Australia in the Boxing Day Test match being played at the MCG. Agarwal scored a brilliant 76 in the first innings to help India reach a competitive score of 443/7 on day two.
Team India look to be in the driving seat against Australia in the Boxing Day Test currently being played at the MCG. After a strong start from Mayank Agarwal, Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli put up a long and enduring partnership in the middle to lead India to a massive score of 443/7 before India opted to declare on day two in Melbourne.
"He is the most hardworking person I have seen in the dressing room, growing up. He is one of my inspiration in the dressing room when we used to play together. I used to see him, hitting the gym, hitting the nets or doing the running... he is an absolute beast. I used to look at him and ask him 'can we train together?'," Rahul told bcci.tv.
Last season, the 27-year-old Karnataka native had scored 1160 runs in 9 matches and followed it up with 723 runs in the Vijay Hazare Trophy the same year. Agarwal set a domestic record of 2141 runs across all formats in the said season. At the MCG, Agarwal set the highest score by an Indian cricketer on a Test debut in Australia, going past the previous record of 51 runs set by Dattu Phadkar, at the Sydney Cricket Ground in 1947.
"I want to be the most hardworking player in the room. That's the least I can do for myself. I am happy to start off my Test career like this. When I walked into the ground for the pre-match routine, I looked all around. It seemed big. I went through a lot of emotions. I would be lying to say that I wasn't nervous at all. The first couple of overs were like 'wow'.
"The quality of [Australia's] bowling was very good. They play their cricket hard. They hit hard lengths, they kept testing you, kept bowling good balls. the intensity at which they played was something that I have never played before. As a person, I want to be in those challenges and go out and give my best," Agarwal said in an interview.
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