The Indian batter, KL Rahul has already lost his place in India’s T20 and Test XIs, and that too in rapid succession. There has never been a doubt about his abilities, but Rahul has failed to convert skill into performance as much as the team would’ve liked. After a disastrous T20 World Cup, he has not been named in any of India’s T20 squads. He was stripped of his vice-captaincy and dropped from the third Test against Australia after a string of low scores in the longest format.
KL Rahul attended the jersey launch of Lucknow Super Giants, the franchise he leads in the IPL. The 30-year-old is certain to return to the Indian XI in the three-match ODI series against Australia scheduled to be commencing on March 17 but after that, he will have to use IPL 2023 as the launchpad of his turnaround in the other two formats.
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Former Indian opener Gautam Gambhir, who is also the mentor of LSG, said getting dropped from T20Is and Tests should “hurt” Rahul. As per the quotes in Sports Tak, he said, “These things happen to every cricketer. Name one cricketer who has scored runs with the same consistency from the start to the end. And these things are good for you. These things should hurt you.”
He further added, “If it has hurt him then it is a great thing for us. When you see someone else play and you are running around as a 12th man with water, it should hurt you.”
KL Rahul has been a prolific scorer in the IPL. He has scored more than 600 runs in four of the last five seasons. The only exception was the 2019 season where he missed out by only 7 runs. But his strike rate has often been criticized. Gambhir explained that Rahul doesn’t need to score 600 runs, it will be fine if he can score 400 runs at a good strike rate that helps his team win the tournament.
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Elaborating the same, Gautam Gambhir said, “And you don’t need to prove it to anybody when you are leading a franchise. But if you are not on the T20 side, not in the playing XI of the Test team then you can look at IPL as an isolated tournament or look at it as an opportunity to reinvent yourself. Scoring more than 600 runs in an IPL season is not important. Score 400 but those should impact your team’s performance.”
