Shikhar Dhawan’s absence from the T20I series against West Indies gives KL Rahul the perfect opportunity to seal his spot in the Indian side as an opener ahead of the T20 World Cup next year. Moreover, as he takes the field on Friday, he will also have the chance of completing 1000 runs in T20Is for India.
Rahul has 974 T20I runs to his name at the moment at an excellent average of 42.34 and he needs just 26 more runs to reach the milestone. He will achieve the feat in 29 innings if he gets there on Friday and thus, will become the second fastest Indian to the milestone after Virat Kohli, who achieved the feat in 27 innings.
The 27-year-old will also become the joint third-fastest to 1000 T20I runs overall. Pakistan’s Babar Azam (26 innings) holds the record for being the fastest to achieve the feat currently followed by Kohli (27) at second and Australia’s Aaron Finch (29) at third.
Rahul has been in excellent form in this format of late. He scored a match-winning fifty in the series decider of the three-match series between India and Bangladesh a month back, and followed that up with an outing of 313 runs at an average of 52.16 in Karnataka’s title-winning Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy campaign recently.