It was no less than a dream day and dream experience playing for a new franchise and hitting a fifty in just fourteen balls in the first match for the wicket-keeper batsman. It was the home match for the Kings XI Punjab at Mohali and they started off with fielding. Batting got glittery with Rahul’s fastest fifty in just fourteen balls and KL Rahul couldn’t help himself from holding back to praise his previous teammate Chris Gayle for getting such inspiration.
Rahul was previously a part of Royal Challenger’s Bangalore but never could have contributed much to the team due to not getting write playing position on the team and also due to his injury prone career. This year he has been given the role of a batsman and wicketkeeper in Preity Zinta owned team Kings XI Punjab and he didn’t disappoint with. He ripped apart the Delhi Daredevil bowlers with his extravagant shots and also made the record of Yusuf Pathan and Narine’s fastest fifty tumbles under his name. He was the only player to score the fifty by just the end of the third over and result being the home team getting the first test of victory.
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Rahul was elated by this performance and said that it was his long stay at RCB camp and interactions with teammate Gayle that has most inspired him.
“I have realized over the years playing with Gayle (while being part of the RCB squad), and I have spoken to him over the last couple of years about how to pace the innings and he always keep telling about getting into good positions and then body reacts. That’s all I was trying to do and I’m really happy that it came off today,” he said on IPL official site.
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He added that in no way he had scripted that innings of his trying to work on analyzing the bowlers. He just made it through the game keeping his mind still and that’s how he achieved it easily.
“I didn’t plan to play this innings that way. I just went there, I wanted to play a couple of balls in. But the first ball (Trent) Boult bowled, he tried to swing it in, but there was no swing so I knew that the ball was going to come straight and I just wanted to take him on straight away. I knew that once the ball gets older it is going to get harder for the batsmen batting down the order. So my plan was to make sure that the new ball goes for a lot of runs so that the batsmen batting after me will find it easier” Rahul concluded.
Rahul was robbed in by the KXIP with 11 crores and the management must be happy about how he started things off well. Hopefully, more Man of The Match Awards will come his way in upcoming match days.
