Former Indian cricketer and commentator, Sanjay Manjrekar, has made a very important evaluation of KL Rahul’s batting after Team India suffered a 7-wicket defeat in the second ODI to concede the three-match ODI series 0-2 to South Africa on Friday (January 21) with one match left to play.
In the first ODI, Rahul was dismissed for just 12. However, he showed much improvement in the second ODI against South Africa in Paarl. The stand-in captain batted 79 balls for 55 runs and added 115 runs with Rishabh Pant (85) to help Team India post 287/6 in the second ODI.
However, despite his contribution, the cricketer-turned-commentator Manjrekar believes that Rahul’s batsmanship goes down when he takes up the role of captaincy – either for Punjab Kings (PBKS) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) or the Indian cricket team.
He also feels the captaincy burden might have diminished Rahul’s impact as a batter, as his impact in the game with the bat has been going down when he is the captain of the side.
Manjrekar told ESPNcricinfo: “Today, you could say with Rishabh Pant batting there and the kind of overall confidence that the Indian team currently has, he saw potential issues had he got out early, especially with Virat Kohli gone.”
He continued, “So I can understand the innings but going forward, I just want to see KL Rahul [be] the guy who makes an impact with the bat. Like Virat Kohli, for example, when he became the captain didn't lose Virat Kohli the batter who won him a lot of games. I want to see the same with KL Rahul.”
Highlighted Rahul's struggles in the first ODI, Manjrekar noted: “Staying in the moment is key, no long-term plans. Because that was the most impressive part of Temba Bavuma's captaincy and how he used his bowlers optimally. Rahul didn't do that in the last game. A couple of his bowlers were being expensive but he completed their 10.”
He concluded, “Today Shamsi bowled as much as he should and even with Keshav Maharaj and Markam... So India [will have to] find a way to ensure that nobody over-bowls - if it's their day, they complete the 10 overs, if they are not bowling well then they don't bowl the full quota of 10.”
