KL Rahul has found himself in a very tricky situation after coming back into the Indian team. The Mangalore-born batter was out with a groin injury sustained towards the end of the Indian T20 League.
After surgery, Rahul had to go to the National Cricket Academy (NCA) Bangalore to get back to full fitness. The 30-year-old eventually got back to full physical fitness but in the time that he was out of the team, Indian cricket had moved a fair distance further.
At that time, India employed a new approach to cricket where players are asked to play with high intensity irrespective of the situation. New players like Suryakumar Yadav, Deepak Hooda, Ishan Kishan and others have already learned the new way of cricket. Meanwhile, the veterans like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja and others have swiftly moved on to play with the new approach.
The ones who have difficulty adapting to the high-intensity game, like Shikhar Dhawan and others have been left out of the T20I side. KL Rahul has come back into the team which is under huge transformation and hence he needs to adapt quickly or face sacking. His poor knocks against Pakistan, as well as Hong Kong, have allowed uncertainty to creep into the minds of not just the selectors and fans but also the player himself.
Against Hong Kong, the right-handed openers made a poor 36 off 39 deliveries. Knocks like these are not even ODI-worthy anymore. So to play this slowly in a T20I match against a minnow team raised many eyebrows. Even KL Rahul’s former team in the Indian T20 League, Punjab, came up with a subtle dig about Rahul’s innings.
Punjab Kings’ official Twitter handle tweeted, “2nd blow for India, KL Rahul departs after a solid 36 off 39.” Fans were soon to point out the sarcastic tone in the Tweet and soon twitter joined in to point out the subtle dig.
Let’s look at how Twitter reacted to Punjab’s subtle dig at KL Rahul.
Sollid??
— Rakesh reddy (@lordprajyanoja) August 31, 2022
Trolling ur EX-Legend ??
— ????? // Miss you Ross Taylor (@Depressed_kanan) August 31, 2022
Trolling your ex-captain this bad
??— Sohaib attari (@Imalwayshere56) August 31, 2022
Blow for who ?
— Prabhu (@Cricprabhu) August 31, 2022
Finally Kl rahul is out after his slow & frustrating inning ?
— Navneet (@me_mithilesh_09) August 31, 2022
Twitter in general was very disappointed with KL Rahul’s slow batting despite India being vocal about the new high-intensity approach ahead of the Asia Cup 2022. Many called out Rahul for keeping the likes of Hooda, Rishabh Pant and Sanju Samson out of the team.
Great knock by KL Rahul ?????? pic.twitter.com/HKzQhDfxVC
— Ethereal Rohit?? ? (@EtherealRohit) August 31, 2022
What on earth is driving KL Rahul to bat with this "approach" when India have been so vocal about aggressive intent. #INDvHK
— Mayank (@kmayank9) August 31, 2022
Rishabh Pant and Deepak Hooda watching KL Rahul coming back to pavellion pic.twitter.com/dV1hcnkcxO
— Aditya Sen (@AdityaSen0007) August 28, 2022
