Former Indian batter Sanjay Manjrekar has criticised KL Rahul after Delhi Capitals suffered an eight-wicket loss against Chennai Super Kings at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi on Tuesday. Rahul was dismissed after trudging to a run-a-ball 12 against CSK.
The flamboyant batter was dismissed by Akeal Hosein when he wanted to go big but ballooned the ball to Ruturaj Gaikwad. Manjrekar said Rahul can’t afford to score his runs at run-a-ball when other openers are going at a strike rate of 200.
In the previous game against RR, Rahul had scored 75 runs off just 40 balls in the run chase of 226 but he could not replicate the same performance.
Manjrekar said on his Instagram handle, “It’s almost like odd and even games, where sometimes he goes after the bowling straightaway, which is the KL Rahul you want. But then he feels like he has earned the right, and he feels responsible for the rest of the batters to come, and then plays an innings like that. Once you get out after getting to 12 off 12, you’ve signed the death warrant for your team. Once they had those insipid first six overs, DC were done for the game.”
“KL Rahul, after playing a brilliant innings the match prior, got 12 off 12 balls in the first six overs. That’s two overs going at a strike rate of 100. When you have openers going at 200, you can’t be having an opener getting 12 off 12 in the hope that he’ll explode later.”
On the other hand, Manjrekar reckons out-of-form Axar Patel can’t bat ahead of batters like David Miller, Ashutosh Sharma and Sameer Rizvi.
“Axar Patel, on many occasions, has promoted himself up the order to number four or five. And on one occasion, David Miller, who is also a left-hander, went to bat after him. So it’s not about the left-right combination. People like Miller, Sameer Rizvi, and Ashutosh Sharma have gone to bat after Axar Patel. Axar Patel is a bowling all-rounder, and he can’t really be going ahead of these three,” said Manjrekar (via the aforementioned source).
Delhi Capitals will next take on Kolkata Knight Riders at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi on Friday.
