Two half-centuries in three T20s against Sri Lanka in December 2017 were not good enough for the Indian team management, and KL Rahul was subsequently made to sit out of the playing eleven in South Africa. With the England tour now in sight, one doesn’t know whether he will get a chance to play, with batsmen such as Suresh Raina and Ambati Rayudu in the fray. But one thing is for sure, KL Rahul has made his claim.
Opening alongside his former RCB colleague Chris Gayle, Lokesh Rahul has had a stellar IPL season so far with his new franchise Kings XI Punjab. Besides not having even one single-digit score, the Karnataka batsman has notched six half-centuries in 13 innings.
KL Rahul is currently leading the top run-scorer list, with 652 runs at a strike-rate of 160.98, and is one of eight batsmen to score over 650 runs in a season.
In a team with Gayle and Yuvraj Singh, he has managed to emerge the top batsman, ensuring that Punjab puts up at least some sign of a fight. With six wins after 13 matches, the sixth-placed KXIP must win their final group stage match against Chennai Super Kings with a big margin.
KL Rahul’s 652 this year is the most runs scored by a KXIP batsman in an IPL season – this very feat proves how important he has been to the side this year.
Halfway through the group stages, KL Rahul told PTI on 4 May:
And guess what! He went on to smash unbeaten knocks of 84* and 95* in the next two games.
In addition, Lokesh Rahul has been one of the very few players who has been equally efficient against pace and spin. And this, perhaps, is the reason behind his consistent performances in IPL 2018.
All of this, and KL Rahul had not even been retained by Royal Challengers Bangalore for this season of the IPL. A few questions were raised after the Virat Kohli-led franchise chose not to bring KL back for IPL 11, even though he missed the previous season due to a shoulder injury he sustained during India’s Test series against Australia.
In the 2016 season, KL Rahul scored 397 runs at an average of 44.41.
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