RCB vs LSG, IPL 2022: Former India batsman Sanjay Manjrekar said that if opening batsman KL Rahul bats fast instead of long, IPL or international cricket team can benefit a lot.
Rahul scored 79 runs in 58 balls against Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL 2022 Eliminator match. But he was dismissed by Josh Hazlewood in the 19th over, leaving Lucknow losing the tournament by 14 runs.
Rahul had raised questions on slow batting :-
Rahul batted slowly till the end of the powerplay, till 99 runs needed from the last 7 overs. Then he started batting fast, followed by Rahul scoring 79 runs in 58 balls at a strike rate of 136; but it was not enough to take Lucknow to Qualifier 2. Questions have raised after Rahul’s slow innings.
RCB vs LSG: Some great shots played by Rahul against Josh Hazlewood :-
Manjrekar said, ‘KL Rahul himself has the ability to do this. You see that every time he has decided to play big shots, he has been able to do better. He played some great shots against Josh Hazlewood. But he had changed his approach, so that he wanted to bat longer instead of playing fast.
Manjrekar, “If I were his coach, I would have asked him to bat faster” :-
RCB vs LSG: Manjrekar said, ‘If I were his coach, I would have asked him to bat faster. Even if he is the captain because we have seen a lot of matches where teams will benefit a lot if KL Rahul bats fast instead of just long runs.
Manjrekar has further remarked that Rahul cannot handle the main batting charge in the team; especially when he is captaining in the IPL, something that a captain like MS Dhoni or Virat Kohli has done.
Rahul has scored fiercely in IPL 2022 :-
Although Rahul has scored over 550 runs in every IPL season since 2018, his strike rates from 2019 to 2022 have been 135.3; 129.34, 138.80 and 135.38, which is lower than his strike rate of 142.49 for India. Manjrekar advised Rahul to have fun and express himself while batting instead of carrying the burden of winning the match alone.
He said, ‘As a coach, I would try to tell them that I am not expecting you to win matches. You just go on the field and have fun batting. You will see that the results have started coming in.