Cameron Green hails ‘nice’ KL Rahul for easing his nerves from behind the stumps

Australian debutant Cameron Green was ‘taken back’ by ‘nice’ KL Rahul’s words from behind the stumps when he was actually expecting the exact opposite at that time.

Green has been a revelation in Australian domestic cricket in the last one year which propelled him to the national side pretty soon. An injury to Marcus Stoinis first and then a host of changes to the playing XI for the Canberra ODI ensured a place for him in the middle-order but that would have hardly helped his cause.

As any youngster would be, Green was pretty nervous about being in the middle but there were few encouraging words from behind the stumps.

“I was actually taken aback by how nice KL Rahul was behind the stumps,” Green said, reported ESPN Cricinfo. “I think he asked me if I was nervous or not and I just replied saying ‘yeah obviously a little bit nervous’ and he just said ‘go well, youngster’. I thought it would have been the opposite. I think Virat [Kohli] was trying to be pretty loud at the time.

“I was a bit taken aback by how nice that was. I’ll remember that forever.”

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While his domestic form has been enormous this season, there was always doubt of him replicating the same considering the level he was going to operate from now on. It massively played a part in Canberra, but the nervousness was palpable.

Green praises Indian bowlers

At one point in time, he was on 3 off 12 balls before he could add another 18 off the next 15 balls. Green put that down to the quality of international bowling as well as Ravindra Jadeja’s incredible consistency in landing the balls at one particular area.

“They’re class bowlers, especially their spinners,” Green said. “I haven’t faced quality like that. Jadeja is just a beautiful bowler who knows exactly what he’s trying to do. Trying to spin a couple away from you and dart one back in. It was class bowling.

“You can do as much research and watch as much footage as you can, which I did, to get a better understanding of how they bowled, but it’s a different beast when you’re actually facing them out in the middle. It took me a couple of overs to get used to it. But I take a lot out of it.”

Green will push for his cause as both teams square off against each other in the first T20I at the Manuka Oval today.