KL Rahul made 36 in 39 balls against Hong Kong, failing to find any rhythm.
The Indian team was asked to bat first after Hong Kong captain Nizakat Khan won the toss and chose to bowl. India rested Hardik Pandya from this match and Rishabh Pant was added to the XI.
India started off slowly as KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma gauged the pace of the pitch on which the ball held before coming onto the bat. Rohit Sharma tried to up the tempo in the powerplay overs scoring 21 in 13 balls, before getting out to Ayush Shukla.
Then Virat Kohli and KL Rahul struggled to find rhythm in the middle overs and the Indian scoring rate suffered. Though Virat Kohli managed to hit some boundaries, Rahul couldn’t manage to get the bowlers away and was finally dismissed by Mohammad Ghazanfar for 36 runs in 39 balls with only 2 sixes to his name.
Former India cricketer Venkatesh Prasad was one of the people on social media questioning this approach by KL Rahul in this match as he didn’t look in any touch. Prasad tweeted: “Is there something in the pitch that is not visible. Simply can't fathom this approach especially from KL Rahul.”
Former India pacer Dodda Ganesh quoted Prasad's tweet and said: "I would rather have an opener like Prithvi Shaw who throws caution to the wind and gets going right from the word go in the T20s. This approach is inexplicable."
This led to many cricket fans sharing their thoughts on this weird innings by Indian vice-captain and here are some of the tweets.