Former Indian batter Sanjay Manjrekar has questioned KL Rahul’s knock against Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Eliminator at Eden Gardens, Kolkata on Wednesday. While chasing a gargantuan total of 208 runs, LSG could not get over the line as they fell short by 14 runs in the end.
Rahul scored 79 runs but he faced a total of 58 balls and thus scored his runs at a strike rate of 136.21, which was not good enough as 10 runs/over was the need of the hour.
Rahul scored only one boundary between overs 7 and 13 as he failed to take the attack against RCB spinners. LSG could only manage 49 runs in these six overs and it came back to bite them in the end.
Furthermore, LSG had too much to do in the final five overs and he could only manage 50 runs in the same period to fall behind the eight ball.
Rahul has all the shots under his repertoire but adopts a sedate approach as a batter when he is leading a team as the same was noticed when he was leading PBKS.
The flamboyant batter batted aggressively against the RCB fast bowlers but his strike rate against the spinners was quite low.
Manjrekar, speaking on Espncricinfo’s T20 Time Out said, “The thing with KR Rahul’s team is that there is no point in having batting depth if one batter (KL Rahul) is inclined to bat the whole of the innings. And we saw that with Punjab Kings as well… I used to feel sorry for (Mumbai Indians’) Kieron Pollard, he used to come in and just get about 6 or 8 balls to play.”
As Rahul batted till the 19th over, power-hitters like Marcus Stoinis, Krunal Pandya, and Evin Lewis got a chance to bat late in the innings when the asking rate climbed up around 12 and they didn’t have many balls to make an impact.
Manjrekar feels having good depth in batting is crucial but it is also important to utilize it, which LSG didn’t do against RCB. The cricketer-turned-commentator feels Rahul bats with an extra burden when he is leading an IPL team.
“So you know all those batters down… the (Krunal) Pandyas, (Marcus) Stoinis’s and Evin Lewis; if KL Rahul would have got out say around 12th or 13th over, the same score they would have come into the game a little more and I’m sure they’ll win more matches like that. We don’t know whether that will happen but it seems like a more solid approach,” opined Manjrekar.
“So depth is needed; depth is good provided everybody out there goes out to get maximum from every ball. But if there is one batter who bats 19 overs in one inning… 19 overs of KL Rahul in that kind of gear was just going to make it difficult,” added Manjrekar.
