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Former Indian keeper-batter Robin Uthappa shared an unheard-of incident involving KL Rahul. Uthappa and Rahul, both hailing from Karnataka, used to play together in domestic tournaments. Rahul later got the national cricket team call-up, and Robin Uthappa retired from professional cricket.
When Rahul was an emerging talent, Uthappa, who was then a seasoned cricketer for Karnataka, suggested Rahul. Uthappa suggested that KL Rahul improve his power hitting.
Robin Uthappa shares an incident involving KL Rahul
In a recent conversation, the former cricketer revealed that back in those days, when KL Rahul used to be his Karnataka teammate, he found it hard to clear the thirty-yard circle. As the nature of the game was changing at a quick pace, Uthappa asked KL Rahul to work on his power game. Rahul somehow got offended by the suggestion.
Later, when Rahul made his Team India debut and cemented his place in the team, he came to Robin Uthappa and revealed that he was actually not happy with his suggestion. But later, as he started to realize the importance of the boundaries and the strike rate, Rahul started to develop his batting approach.
"I remember telling him (Rahul) that he was a very good player but needed to work on his power game. Later, when we played Ranji Trophy together, he told me that he was offended by my advice as a kid. But he said it made him work on his power game. And now he can clear the boundary at will, from someone with no power, because he was single-minded and had the desire to play at the highest level," Robin Uthappa said during a conversation on the Commbox with Deepak Goyal YouTube channel.
"KL's foundational cricket was very strong. He grew up very lean and not very strong but was a technically extremely sound batter. I remember playing with him in the KPL (now the Maharaja Cup), and we were on the same team. But his highest score in the tournament was only 30, and he was finding it difficult to clear the 30-yard circle," he continued.
KL Rahul had to struggle with his strike rate in IPL
Uthappa pointed out that when Rahul first came to play in the Indian Premier League, his strike rate was slightly over a hundred. Rahul made his IPL debut for the Royal Challengers Bengaluru in 2013, batting only in a couple of innings with a strike rate of 125.00.
For the next two seasons, he played for the Sunrisers Hyderabad, and the strike rates in IPL 2014 and IPL 2015 were 101.21 and 112.69, respectively.
KL Rahul improved his strike rate in 2016
Rahul's strike rate leaped in the 2016 IPL after joining the Delhi Capitals. That season, from 112.69, the batter's strike rate went to 146.49.
"He was a work in progress with SRH. It was when he landed in RCB that he revealed how great he can be. And he really flourished when he went to Punjab Kings. In his defense, he was a transitional player because he had the upbringing of a traditional cricketer but the career of a Gen-Z cricketer. That's not an easy path to navigate," said Robin Uthappa.
