In a lighthearted moment, Delhi Capitals (DC) batter KL Rahul reminded his team’s mentor, Kevin Pietersen, of his old social media post on him. Rahul, who was bought by DC for Rs 14 crore, hit a match-winning half-century, helping his side beat the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) on Saturday. Rahul hit 77 off 51 balls, slamming six four and three sixes, as DC maintained its 100 per cent record in IPL 2025. After the match, Rahul had a freewheeling chat with Pietersen, which was organised by the IPL.
During the interview, Rahul reminded Pietersen than he once compared his batting to be as slow as watching “paint dry on a wall.”
“It’s better than watching the paint of the wall dry. Exactly. That was your tweet about me one day,” KL Rahul told Pietersen.
While Pietersen found it hard to recall sharing something like that, he was glad to see Rahul change his batting approach.
“Did I say that? Well, I am glad you’ve changed your game,” Pietersen replied.
Rahul also talked about his new approach to playing white-ball cricket from the realisation that he has to adapt to the modern way of being relevant in the game.
“I think somewhere along the way I lost that fun of hitting boundaries and hitting sixes. I wanted to take the game deep, deep, deep and that somehow stuck in my head. But now I have realised I need to go back. Cricket’s changed, and T20 cricket, especially, is only about hitting boundaries.
“The team that hits more boundaries and sixes ends up winning the game. So back to enjoying my cricket. I am not thinking too much about the game, not thinking about taking it deep or none of that stuff. Just see (the) ball and try and be aggressive and put the pressure on the bowler and the opposition and just enjoy hitting boundaries,” he concluded.
Rahul had missed DC’s first game due to paternity leave and on return against Sunrisers Hyderabad, he hit an aggressive five-ball 15 before unleashing a knock in the same vein and on a larger scale against CSK.
“Knowing that the opposition struggled as much as I did in the middle and they couldn’t get over the line and get the victory, so it feels good now. But in the middle, I felt I left 15-20 runs at the back end. At the halfway stage when we had the chat and I remember telling you that I’m going to look to hit my pockets.
“I was still in, and I think I had good intent. I was still looking to score boundaries but just wasn’t timing the ball too well. A little bit of a break really helped me. The minute I went back on, I got one in the middle, hit the ball in the gap and I got going after that,” added Rahul.
(With IANS Inputs)
Topics mentioned in this article
