It is tough being out of the team, especially when you are in form and out owing to an injury. Ask KL Rahul about it and he would tell how much he missed being a part of the Indian team. Be it the Test team dominating the visiting New Zealand side or holding the Test mace with pride. KL Rahul went through each of those moments watching it on TV with only one feeling - ‘I wish I was there’. That he was, when he was a part of the side when India began its mammoth home season with the 500th Test in Kanpur. Rahul made fluent thirties in both innings of the match only to walk back home owing to a hamstring injury. For Rahul as he puts it, was heartbreaking. “To start off, it was really heartbreaking to miss out on a home series after a long time,” Rahul said speaking to BCCI.TV. “I played a lot of series outside of India and I was in good form. I wanted to make it big in the home series and it was heartbreaking to get injured and go back to Bengaluru. “I used that time to get fitter and stronger. I worked on my fitness and on my batting because I had all the time in the world. The rehab process was nothing too exciting,” Rahul begins to describe his agonizing six weeks going back to grind to regain full fitness. “It was very boring to be sitting at home. My mind and my heart was always with the Indian team, watching the games day in and day out. To be sitting at home for six weeks is difficult. The first couple of weeks or more, there is not a lot that you can do. You can only wake up and go visit the physiotherapist and spend some time at the rehab center. You have nothing else to do for the rest of the day.” During those tough times it was the willingness to get back to India Test whites that kept Rahul going. “It is very hard to motivate yourself to wake up day in and day out to do boring things again and again. But the eagerness to come back to the Indian team and play against teams like England and Australia ahead motivated me to work harder and get back to full fitness as soon as possible. I kept seeing how well the boys were doing on TV. We became the number one Test side in the world and I have been a part of this team for the last couple of years and we have all worked really hard to achieve that. Not being a part of that Test team in Indore where we became the number one Test side was heartbreaking again. But those were little things that woke me up every day in the morning. I had to work really hard mentally and physically to convince myself that the recovery process will take time but slowly and surely I will be back on the field. And, here I am back in the Indian team.”

Rahul has been drafted back to the India squad and is match-fit for the second Test against England in Vizag. Head coach Anil Kumble was more than welcoming to have a fit and raring to go Rahul back in the side and hinted at giving him a go at the playing eleven come Thursday. Rahul was equally excited with the prospect and believed he was in good batting rhythm. “I am really excited that I am back. My fitness is good and I am batting really well and have got runs in the Ranji Trophy game against Team Rajasthan. Hopefully I can continue from where I left off from Kanpur and go from strength to strength. I am looking forward to this series and making it big again.” Rahul is coming off a 76 and 106 against Team Rajasthan in the ongoing Ranji Trophy fixture for Karnataka. For Rahul, this performance was important not just to boost his confidence but also to instill in him the confidence that he was hundred per cent fit. “It was really important to play a first-class game to give myself the confidence that I was indeed fit. I could have spent a lot of time doing rehab in Bengaluru with the physio and spent time in the gym but until and unless I had played a proper cricket game, I wouldn’t have known how fit I was. It was important for me to get my confidence up and get into the mindset that if I moved quickly, I am not going to injure myself. That is the challenge that someone who is coming back from injury has; to tell your mind that you are completely fit. Somewhere in the mind there is always something holding you back and telling you that you might get injured again. That game helped me in getting my confidence back. I was moving freely and hopefully if I play the game in Vizag, I should be back to where I was - fast, quick, strong and agile.”

Rahul has been a player who has been improving over every tour. He has centuries in Australia, Sri Lanka and West Indies, all of which have come away from home. He is almost two years old in his cricketing career and agrees he has improved over the past couple of years. “I think I have improved enormously over the last couple of years and all the credit goes to the support staff here and all the players I have shared the dressing room with, be it the Indian team or the IPL. I have always looked to learn from players in the dressing room and don’t look too far away for motivation. There are great players in my dressing room sitting right next to me. I just talk to them; see their routines and preparations and look at what goes on in their mind while batting. That helps me a lot and I try to learn from those things. “I have worked on my batting and tried to keep my game very simple. I always felt that there was always a bit of complication in the way I went about my cricket. The more runs I have got, the more confidence I have got building on from strength to strength.”

Rahul is especially excited with the prospect of playing a challenging English bowling attack. Testing times for the young opener, but Rahul is confident of the challenges ahead. “There are quite a lot of big names in the English dressing room and they are a quality side. I have watched them play on TV and it will be a challenge for me to be up against them. I am just going to watch the ball and hit the ones that are in my area. As an opening batsman, I will try to attack the bowling and put the opposition under pressure. Once I get set, I want to dominate.”

Talking about his preparations in the build up to the series, Rahul said, “I have always tried to prepare in the same way. I go to the ground, look at the way the wicket is going to play like and I prepare for the wicket and conditions. I will spend a little time with the batting coach and the analyst and see what their bowlers are doing. I had the time to watch the game on TV and saw what their bowlers were doing and what their plans were. When you go out there, the plans are bound to change and they will come up with a different plan for each batsman. That is the challenge for you as a batsman, you go out there and try to execute your plans and better what the opposition does.”