India vs South Africa 1st Test: After ODIs, KL Rahul scripts masterclass on Test return

KL Rahul has been India's saving grace ever since he returned from injury in Asia Cup 2023. The colours might have changed from Blue to White but KL still justified his tag of scoring big on difficult tracks.

Rahul, who last played a Test match back in July this year, returned to the longest format with a very special hundred in India vs South Africa 1st Test.

He took guard after a top-order collapse and did what Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal couldn't. Rahul dropped anchor and saved India the blemishes with his 8th Test ton. Interestingly, 7 of those hundreds have come outside India.

His love affair with Boxing Day continued as Rahul had made his Test debut on December 26 back in 2014. Rahul also smashed a hundred at Centurion in 2021, which also happened to be the Boxing Day Test.
With that, he also became the first visiting batter to smash 2 Test hundreds in Centurion.

What made his knock even more special was the fact that Rahul steadied India's ship on Day 1 with an unbeaten 70 and then came back on Day 2 to complete a well-deserved hundred in tricky batting conditions.

No wonder why former India skipper Sunil Gavaskar rated his hundred among one of the top 10 Test tons ever in Indian cricket history.