KL Rahul breaks into emotional rant on facing hate over poor form: 'You make it worse than what I'm already feeling'

Team India star KL Rahul finally opened up on facing online trolling and hate over his bad patch with the bat.

Team India's star batter KL Rahul had endured a patch of inconsistent performances over the past few months. Rahul had a forgettable T20 World Cup last year, following which he lost his place in the shortest format of the game. While he did lead the side in the Test series against Bangladesh in December 2022, Rahul also lost his vice-captaincy in the squad and was further sidelined in the final two Tests of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy earlier this year.

KL Rahul (Getty)

To make the matters worse, the opener endured a hamstring injury during the 2023 Indian Premier League – where he leads the Lucknow Super Giants – and is now ruled out of the World Test Championship final against Australia.

Rahul has received immense backlash on social media with fans, and even select former cricketers criticising him and calling for the opener to be dropped from the squad. And the batter has finally broken silence on the criticism and hate he received on social media during a podcast with YouTuber Ranveer Allahbadia, more commonly known with his internet persona, ‘BeerBiceps’.

While Rahul began with thanking those who stood by him during his rough patch, he also talked about the online hate and how it can negatively impact a sportsperson.

“I'm very grateful. I know the last few months haven't been great for me on the field, and the kind of support I've gotten tells that I've done something right in my life. Not just as a cricketer, but also as a person. It feels close to my heart; that's when you know that you had a good impact on people,” Rahul began.

"It's so easy in modern day to... when you see negative comments, when you see someone is down, a few people pick on it and all of them just want to jump on the train and make that person worse than he's already feeling.

“That sometimes affects me, and affects lot of the other boys as well. When some people feel they have the power to say anyone they want, just see what the person is going through. None of us want to perform badly. This is our life, this is what we all do. I don't know anything else apart from cricket. Why would anyone think I'm not serious about my game, and I'm not working hard enough?” Rahul said.

The Indian batter, then, admitted that he used to focus on what fans used to think of him earlier, but that has changed now.

"In sport, there's no connection. I worked hard but the results didn't go my way, but sometimes, I didn't work as hard as I probably would but got the results. Sports has no formula, things happen for you.

“There are people who support the players, but I personally try to stay away from both (good and bad comments). You have to. Sometimes, you do want to listen to people say good things, but you realise if you get sucked into that, you also have to be ready to face the other side. You've to choose what you want to do. If you're a person who doesn't get affected by all that, sure, you do that. For a long time, it didn't affect me. I was like, 'I don't care. I will prove these guys wrong'. But later on, I realised it does affect me, I just tried to hide it," said Rahul.