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Cricket Players'Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma are made of different mettle and maybe KL Rahul isn't': Sanjay Manjrekar
KL Rahul showed some resistance, dragging LSG close to the target, but his approach came under scrutiny with former cricketer turned analyst Sanjay Manjrekar questioning his abilities.
After dominating the league stage for most part of the season, Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) failed to replicate the show in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 play-offs, losing the eliminator against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) by 14 runs. After inviting RCB to bat first, LSG were blown away by Rajat Patidar's imperious show, who went on to smash 112* off 54 balls. His innings helped RCB pile a massive 207/4 on the board and LSG managed 193/6 in response. (IPL 2022 full coverage)
KL Rahul showed some resistance, dragging LSG close to the target, but his approach came under scrutiny with former cricketer turned analyst Sanjay Manjrekar questioning his abilities. Rahul scored 79 off 58 balls.
Speaking on ESPNcricinfo's show T20 Time:Out, Manjrekar said: "We've seen enough of KL Rahul to now know that when he becomes this player, the captain, the key player of the side… I mean Virat Kohli loves that kind of responsibility. Dhoni loved it. I think Rohit Sharma, barring this season, generally likes that kind of responsibility. Maybe KL Rahul temperamentally is not suited to take this kind of responsibility where he is the man who's got to get the job done. They are just made of different mettle and maybe KL Rahul isn't.
"As a coach, I would drill that into his head to tell him that I'm not expecting you to win the game. You just go and have fun, and funnily enough, you'll see the results start coming and that's why I believe he has a much better strike rate at the international level rather than at the IPL level because he's just one of the many batters. He's playing alongside Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma and the others, so he just goes out there and expresses himself."
This is not the first time Rahul's conversion rate has been a topic of discussion. In the previous seasons, when he led Punjab Kings, Rahul had a similar approach and the difference in his strike-rate at IPL and international cricket is a proof. The Lucknow captain, who will be seen leading Team India in the upcoming home series against South Africa, scored at a strike rate of 134.53 in the previous four editions of IPL. His strike-rate at international level is 142.49 overall.
"KL Rahul's innings is something that we've seen before when he was captaining Punjab Kings, for example, [and they] would fall short of a run-chase," he said. "The scenario would be the same. You'll have KL Rahul batting right till the very end, they would have lost three or four wickets and people like [Nicholas] Pooran would come in like Evin Lewis came in the last two overs and Krunal [Pandya] in the last, [Marcus] Stoinis in the last three. So [for them], it's a bit working with the crumbs that are left. You've got to come in and try to make up for the lack of pace that the innings had.
"KL Rahul himself has the ability to do that. You see every time he decided to play the big shot, it came off. He played a couple of terrific shots against [Josh] Hazelwood. He can do it when he wants to but he just has this very deep-rooted belief, or an attitude, or an approach, that he wants to bat longer rather than quicker.
"If I was his coach, I would just take that decision out of his hand even if he's the captain, for we've seen a lot of games where the teams would benefit immensely if KL Rahul just batted quicker rather than longer," Manjrekar stated further.
