India opener KL Rahul on Friday said that the unsuccessful trip to England in 2018 made him realise that it was important to hold back shots in tough conditions. The Karnataka batsman said this is helping him in the current series. Rahul scored 84 in the first innings of the first Test against England at Trent Bridge in Nottingham. His innings helped India take a 95-run lead.

“I used to have a lot of thoughts in my mind. I felt I could play two or three different shots for every given ball in red ball cricket, so that was something I realised, I had to learn to control,” Rahul said during a media interaction after the end of third day’s play on Friday.

Rahul had a horrid outing when India toured England in 2018. He could score just one century in 10 Test innings. His scores were a dejecting 4, 13, 8, 10, 23, 36, 19, 0 and 37 before he came up with an effort of 149.

In a three-day warm up game ahead of the first Test, Rahul had scored a century.

“Sometimes when the going gets tough or the wickets are challenging, playing against good bowlers, when the ball is swinging, you have to hold back some of the shots, so those are the things, I tried to work on, or those were the learnings from when I was failing in Test cricket,” he said.

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Rahul also said that sitting outside the team, he learned from the other batsmen, who were scoring runs.

“I haven’t got to play a lot of red ball cricket but sitting outside, watching the games and watching batsmen score runs was good enough for me. I have been playing cricket, so the mental bit, like I said, in any format is it important that shot selection is spot on.

“I am happy that today I could go out there and show a lot of discipline, and get my team a good start and then put us in a good position.”