The Future of KL Rahul: Opportunities and Challenges

KL Rahul is a rare talented cricketer, as the 32-year-old cricketer is known for his versatility. He can be used in various positions on a team, which makes him a valuable and unexchangeable asset for any team. Currently, he is in an interesting phase in his career.

Since his international cricket debut in 2014, Rahul has played 53 Tests, 77 ODIs, and 72 T20Is. The right-handed batter has scored 2981, 2851, and 2265 runs, respectively. While he has a moderate Test batting average (33.87), he also has impressive batting averages in the white-ball formats (49.15 ODI average and 37.75 T20I average). 

KL Rahul’s versatility

KL Rahul can bat as an opener or as a top-order. The right-handed batter can also take the middle-order batting responsibilities, especially in the Test cricket format. In the T20 cricket format, Rahul majorly takes the opening batter responsibility. In the meantime, he is a good fielder in various positions and a dependable wicketkeeper. 

Rahul has experienced the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019 and 2023 editions. On the other hand, he has also played in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 and 2022 editions. 

Present status

Despite his strong international cricket resume, Rahul is struggling to secure his place in the national team. While he has recently struggled with the bat in Test cricket, his ODI and T20I records are not strong enough, especially in terms of strike rate. In fact, he last played a T20I match during the semi-final of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 in Australia. 

While India are now ready for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25 (BGT 2024-25), where India will play a five-match Test series against the hosts Australia, Rahul has a major role in the team. While the Indian batting side doesn’t have much experience in Australia, Rahul has to play an important role in the batting side. 

KL Rahul in Australia

Rahul previously played Tests in Australia in the 2014-15 season and the 2018-19 season. In five Tests in Australia, the right-handed batter scored 187 runs in nine innings with an average of 20.17. Apart from 110 in the 2015 Sydney Test, Rahul’s other valuable contribution with the bat was 44 runs during the 2018 Adelaide Test. In the other seven Test innings in Australia, Rahul only managed one double-digit score (16 in the 2015 Sydney Test). Surely, it isn’t a good picture in his career.

However, Rahul has a great opportunity to become a dependable player for the national team by performing well with his experiences in the upcoming BGT. 

Rahul in the IPL

While Rahul is struggling to stay in the Indian team, he was also recently released from the IPL team Lucknow Super Giants (LSG). Despite becoming the first LSG player to score 1000+ runs and leading the team to the Eliminator on their IPL debut in 2022, Rahul wasn’t retained by the LSG before the upcoming mega auction. 

Rahul’s exclusion from the LSG was expected, as the franchise’s unhappiness with the skipper Rahul was openly visible in the last season, as he had a heated argument with the chairman Sanjiv Goenka after the end of their IPL 2024 match against the hosts SunRisers Hyderabad.

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Why is Rahul important in the IPL?

Although Rahul has been criticised recently for his non-aggressive attitude in T20 cricket batting, especially as an opener, it is also true that the right-handed batter has been the leading run-scorer since the IPL 2017. During this period, Rahul batted 93 IPL innings, where he scored 30 or more runs in 51 innings, including four centuries and 33 half-centuries. It shows his consistency level with the bat in this format. 

So, there is no doubt that Rahul will be a highly demandable player in the upcoming IPL mega auction. His previous IPL teams Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and Punjab Kings (PBKS) have the spots for him, and they can fight with other franchises in the upcoming mega auction. 

The final talk

While KL Rahul is going through multiple issues, he has a great chance to quash all the negative talks around him. Rahul has seen this tough time previously, and he managed to move away from that with the time progress. The experienced Rahul is once again in a tough but opportunity-filled phase, and we only expect the best story from him.