Advertisement
After suffering a disappointing defeat in the T20 World Cup held in Australia, India’s next tour of New Zealand comes to an end today. In the previous World Cup, except for Virat Kohli, Suryakumar and Hardik Pandya, captain Rohit Sharma and other important cricketers in the batting field gave defeat. Especially KL Rahul, who played as the vice-captain and the opening batsman who had to give an aggressive start, except the match against Zimbabwe and missed the remaining matches against the big teams made the fans bitter.
He surpassed senior Shikhar Dhawan to become India’s latest run machine, surpassing Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma since 2019, and his IPL market exceeded all others and reached a peak of 17 crores. So he started aggressively and eventually played with a low strike rate with the selfish intention of scoring big runs to retain his position or getting out for few runs in critical matches.
Fear is the problem:
Also, the fans who show proof that he is pushing the time by smashing the young ones who are stumbling against the big teams are strongly criticizing that he will only score in the IPL series and is selfish. Rahul, who is so talented that he is hailed as a class batsman by the legends, is afraid of getting out, but his slow batting performance is holding him back. In this case, former Australian player Shane Watson has said that the reason for Rahul’s stumbling is that despite his ability, he wants to play defense with fear.
Here is what he talked about in a recent interview: “What I would say to KL Rahul – he is at his best when he challenges the competition. So he should not try the approach of changing the strike or throwing too much tackle. He puts immense pressure on the opposition bowlers while playing fearlessly. Because he has plenty of shots to hit the bowlers for fours or sixes no matter how they bowl. But when Rahul thinks that he can play tackle, the same tension that all batsmen have and weakness and faltering come out in him,” he said.
– Advertisement –
Despite his claimed prowess, it is safe to say that KL Rahul’s blunder is due to his fear of playing. Because the same Rahul, who scored 659 runs at an impressive strike rate of 158.41 in the 2019 IPL series, scored big runs of 135.36, 129.34, 138.80 respectively in the following seasons, but scored at a lower strike rate. Especially this year he scored 616 runs for Lucknow at a modest strike rate of 135.38.
From this it is clear that either he is playing with a selfish desire to retain his market or he is playing with a fear of somehow scoring big runs to help his team win. The fact is that he can once again be successful if he lets go of this mindset and plays with the intention of smashing the bowlers.
Advertisement