'...When you come back home, when there's three spinners playing and the field's spread out, you really need to get your runs with singles. The boundaries don't come that easily.'
Only two Test hundreds at home for KL Rahul in a career spanning over a decade may not sit well with his admirers. But elegant India batter on Friday said he has been working hard to correct that anomaly.
Rahul, who has had an excellent tour of England this summer, struck his 11th century on the second day of the opening Test against the West Indies here -- his first at home since the ton against England in Chennai, way back in 2016.
"Not sure really," Rahul said at the end of day's play when asked why a batter of his calibre has got just two hundreds at home.
"But yeah, somehow I think the only thing that I've worked on in the last year or so has been maintaining my batting tempo. Just enjoying the phases that are not as exciting for me in my own head," he added.
Rahul said he has been working hard on running the singles and twos while playing at home, something he was not able to do in the past, thus affecting his conversion rate.
"Obviously when you travel abroad and play seaming swinging conditions with extra bounce, there's a lot of challenge doing that. And when you come back home, when there's three spinners playing and the field's spread out, you really need to get your runs with singles. The boundaries don't come that easily.
"So yeah, that's something that I've worked on and needed to make that mental switch to enjoy doing that, enjoy grinding and getting 100s with singles and twos as well. So that's something that I've worked on in the last year or so.
"And yeah, I think that's the only difference that I can see and probably that's what I wasn't doing that well previously when I played at home," Rahul said.
While his knock has put India in a dominant position after Dhruv Jurel and Ravindra Jadeja also helped themselves to centuries, it was the conditions than challenged him more than the visiting bowlers.
Rahul is coming off a big hundred for India A against Australia recently, and that has certainly helped him in his preparation for the short two-match series against West Indies after the break post the tour of England.
"Really enjoyed my batting. Playing in different conditions. England was fun. Obviously getting runs there gives you a lot of confidence and coming into this game with some runs behind me also helped. Feeling fresher after a longish break after the series. Yeah, I really enjoyed being back.
Asked if he was nervous?, Rahul said, "No, not really. Because I just played a game last week (for India A). So yeah, I was a bit nervous playing there because I haven't been on the field for a good 5-6 weeks.
"So just to get back into that rhythm, just to get back into getting runs and spending time in the field and coming in day after day for 4-5 days is a bit of a challenge physically as well.
"The conditions here have been really, really challenging physically. The game that I played last week was even worse. So yeah, physically it's been really challenging. But yeah, it's good to be out in the middle and it was good for me to have that game and get some miles in me."
Rahul scored exactly 100 in the first innings, getting dismissed right after the lunch break.
Rahul has scored 632 runs so far in six Tests in the 2025-27 World Test Championship cycle.