KL Rahul’s 98 off 42 balls that included 7 fours and 8 massive sixes against CSK while chasing 135 has impressed former Indian opener Gautam Gambhir. Gambhir called KL as talented as Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma are. He feels that Rahul has more shots than anyone else in India.
“If you can bat like this, why don’t you bat like this? If he can bat like this, he probably has more ability than Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. I am not saying it just because I have seen KL Rahul doing it today, he just has it. He has got more shots than anyone else in India. And he showed that again,” Gambhir said on ESPNCricinfo.
Gambhir felt that it was the overburden of captaincy that affected his batting when he said, ‘Had he played like this, Punjab Kings would’ve qualified by now. It is probably the pressure of captaincy, I don’t know what it is, but the team management can answer.”
Although Punjab Kings cannot qualify now, KL Rahul is the leading run-scorer of this edition of IPL. He has scored 626 runs in 13 innings with an average of 62.60. KL has consistently performed in the last four seasons of IPL and has scored above 500 runs in each of those seasons.