Virat Kohli spoke about KL Rahul’s journey in a video with RCB.© AFP
After captaining the Punjab Kings (PBKS) in the last two seasons of the Indian Premier League (IPL), India batter KL Rahul will start his new journey with the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) after being drafted by the new franchise ahead of the upcoming season. Rahul will lead LSG in IPL 2022, which is slated to begin from March 26. While speaking on the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) podcast, former India captain Virat Kohli has recalled how KL Rahul transformed himself into one of the best batters in the world.
Rahul, who was a part of RCB in 2013, was roped in by the SunRisers Hyderabad for Rs 1 crore for the next two seasons. He, however, returned to the Bengaluru-based franchise in 2016, and ended the season as the team’s third-highest run-getter with 397 runs in 14 matches.
Speaking on Rahul’s journey so far, Virat said that the 29-year-old was not considered as a T20 specialist during the early days of his career.
“KL Rahul was at RCB in 2013 along with Karun (Nair) and Mayank (Agarwal). KL Rahul was never a guy who was looked at as a T20 specialist,” said Virat.
The 33-year-old also revealed that he was not in close contact with Rahul, but kept close tabs on his performance in domestic circuit.
“I hadn’t seen much of KL since he left RCB, and I had heard he is doing well in first-class cricket. He was very young when he was at RCB, and I was already playing for India and we were regularly playing for RCB. So, we never really connected in a very detailed manner,” he added.
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Speaking further, Kohli also said that he was really impressed by Rahul’s “confidence and body language” during India’s tour of Australia in 2014.
“I had seen him play in Australia in 2014 when he made his Test debut and I felt like, ‘Wow! He’s seriously worked some wonder on his game. He’s come back as an amazing player, and he started off so strongly in Australia.’ I was very impressed with his body language, his confidence, his demeanour,” he further revealed.
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