OPINION
Follow UsSince IPL 2018, no batter has scored more runs than KL Rahul. With a minimum of 500-run rider, no one is even close to his average of 56.62. In absolute terms, nothing could challenge his supremacy of 2548 runs from 55 games with 25 fifty-plus scores. Almost a fifty in every two games.
But then where have these runs been translated to?
In the last four years, in which Rahul captained the franchise in two of them, Punjab Kings have a win percentage of just 42.8% - the second-worst after Rajasthan Royals. But certainly, this has not been due to his frailties with the bat. In 2018, his batting contribution to the team was 24.4%, in 2019, it rose to 28.6%, in 2020, that became 29.8 followed by 31.5% in 2021. Rahul’s runs have a constant upswing to the trajectory, making it all worthwhile for him at a personal level, but emblematic of a bigger problem at play for the franchise at the same time.
Was Rahul’s conservatism down to the lack of resources down the order or was it an overestimation of his ability to stay the course and cash in on the opportunities later? Whatever it was, the tactic didn’t just seem silly in hindsight, but also restricted him from showing his full range of strokes that made him such an enticing proposition in 2018. The comments about “strike rates are overrated” didn’t help the cause either.
It was sad and downright improbable to imagine that Rahul changed his approach in such a drastic manner despite being one of the cleanest hitters of the ball in the entire country. It can’t be denied that his penchant for the big stage and the ability to change the course of the game is still unparalleled and a slight tweak in mindset may bring about wholesome changes to the table. And from that perspective alone, his move to Lucknow Super Giants, with Gautam Gambhir at the helm as the mentor, may change the narrative altogether.
One of the best players of spin bowling in the entire world, Rahul had a rather dominating performance in the powerplay in the last four years. However, he suffered the wrath of slow batting against the pacers, accumulating runs at a strike rate of 121.12 in the first six overs. A staggering 46.69% of dot ball worked against his traditional approach, forcing the oppositions to feed the Kings skipper with pacers from both ends. That he played only 121 balls of spin out of the total 892 balls he faced during the period typified other teams’ plan to quiet the Karnataka batter.
Things can be put down to the lack of resources in the middle-order, with the likes of Chris Gayle and Nicholas Pooran being hit and miss players for the major part of the last four years, but Rahul couldn’t let that as an excuse to pass on the blame from his shoulders. Spinners strangulated him in the middle overs as well, conceding runs at a strike rate of 115.66 while dismissing him 15 times. From the sample size, there was not really a definitive answer to how he wanted things to move - confuse at one moment and breath-taking in another but it had a ripple effect on Punjab Kings' fortunes.
Now, things are quite different. Andy Flower has secured more power than his previous stint with Punjab and Gautam Gambhir is an empathetic mentor who himself is a big fan of Rahul’s evolution in Indian cricket. But more importantly, with the likes of Quinton de Kock, Manish Pandey, and Deepak Hooda there, the Lucknow-based franchise can ask Rahul to go big from the beginning, leaving the anchoring job to Pandey, most likely.
That way Rahul may get more freedom to express himself but it remains to be seen if he really wants to move in that direction. For the way the IPL dynamics chugs along, you couldn’t really fault a player to prioritise the average over strike rate - however wrong that might be for a team’s cause - and Rahul knows if he continues to plunder runs in the same prolificity, he wouldn’t need a diversion. Now, if he will go down on that road or return back to the Rahul of 2018 will define the success for LSG in 2022 and beyond while establishing his true legacy in the format.
