KL Rahul was dropped from last 2 Tests vs Australia and lost his vice-captaincy as well.
Former India opener and mentor of Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) across different T20 leagues, Gautam Gambhir took an indirect dig at former India pacer Venkatesh Prasad over his constant criticism of KL Rahul recently.
In February, Prasad had launched a contemptuous attack on KL Rahul and had been vocal against his inclusion in the Indian Test team amid a poor run of form. He had shared stats and numbers supporting his criticism and even got into an ugly Twitter war with Aakash Chopra.
Rahul endured scores of 20, 17, and 1 across the first two Tests against Australia, and was eventually dropped from the XI for the last two Tests, even losing his Test vice-captaincy role.
However, KL Rahul bounced back in the ODIs as he scored a match-winning 75* in 1st match of the three-ODI series against Australia helping India win a low-scoring match.
Gautam Gambhir has backed the 30-year-old, saying that according to him, Rahul is “not under any kind of pressure”.
“What kind of pressure? Last time we (Lucknow Super Giants) finished at No. 3 and it was a tough fight between RR and LSG. Obviously, only one team can lift the trophy. And Gujarat won the IPL, they played excellent cricket last season. And if you take a look at the performance of Lucknow in their debut season, they finished 3rd only because of the NRR. If you finish 2nd in IPL, you get 2 chances at the playoffs,” Gambhir, told SportsTak.
“As far as KL Rahul is concerned, I don’t think he is under any kind of pressure. International cricket and IPL are different from each other. If you don’t perform in international cricket despite scoring 1000 runs in IPL, you will still have to deal with criticism. And that’s international cricket for you. After all, only 15 players get a chance to play for India. In IPL, more than 150 players get selected. Thus, you should not compare these two (IPL and international cricket),” Gambhir continued.
In the same vein, Gambhir also took a veiled dig at Venkatesh Prasad for him criticizing KL Rahul to no end.
“How Rahul has fared in the IPL, he has 4-5 centuries in the tournament. And you are talking about a player who has already slammed 4-5 centuries. Even last season he scored a century against Mumbai Indians. We have so many people here.
Sometimes ex-cricketers need some masala to remain active. So that’s why you criticise people. According to me, the kind of player KL is, he won’t be under any kind of pressure. You can’t win a tournament with one player. The 25 players who are inside the dressing room help you win the tournament,” Gambhir added.
KL Rahul only managed 9 runs in the second ODI loss to Australia. The third ODI will be played in Chennai on March 22.
(Sports Tak inputs)