K.L. Rahul is rapidly acquiring the reputation of an all or nothing batsman, and that’s not necessarily the best thing.
At his sparkling best, the 30-year-old cuts a pleasing figure at the crease, oozing the grace and elegance only associated with a very few right-handers. With a minimum of effort, he is adept at hitting the ball deep into the stands; he also brings wrists and timing and placement into play, finding gaps where others see fielders, manoeuvring the ball deftly this way and that with just a delicate twirl of the willow that can be his uncomplaining ally when the mood seizes him.
When, for whatever reason, he chooses to go deep into his shell, he can be most infuriatingly exasperating. Suddenly, you feel, the ball might explode in his face, with such studied circumspection, suspicion and distrust does he view it. The most innocuous of bowlers are made to appear deadly dangerous, the placidest of surfaces transform into minefields. If you could, you would shake him violently and ask: What gives?
It's this Jekyll and Hyde trait that avid Rahul watchers have been unable to crack for a long time now. A million dollars one day, a pauper the next is incredibly hard to digest. Especially when the man who slips from one avatar to the next is the maker of two Twenty20 International hundreds, and six centuries in total in all T20 matches.
In so many ways, he is the quintessential modern-day batsman, required to and capable of batting in so many different gears, seamlessly fusing the basics acquired in his early days with the innovation mandatory to keep pace with the increasing demands of short-format cricket that places a distant onus on speed. Rahul isn’t so obsessed with technique that he can’t embrace the unconventional; he also isn’t so one-directional that he brings that same cheekiness to red-ball cricket. In a team that prides itself on its adaptability, Rahul is the ultimate example of how not to be mired in doubt and confusion.
And yet, it’s this same Rahul who sometimes carries doubt and confusion as his calling card. Some days, he just freezes – mentally, maybe, and definitely physically. The feet seem as if chained to 100 kilo weights, the mind appears to be addled with gremlins imagined, the bat a heavy log refusing to do his bidding. On those days, watching him bat can be indescribably painful because you know Rahul is so much more than that. Not only does he desist from hitting a ball in anger, he also refuses to work the gaps or look for singles, which means the score board sometimes rattles to a halt and adversely affects his partner, especially if he is purring but isn’t getting the strike he so craves for.
Rahul didn’t play any T20I cricket for the first seven and a half months of this year, but so highly do the decision-makers rate him that once he was fit, they immediately returned him to the set-up for the Asia Cup in the UAE in August-September. Understandably, considering he was away for so long, the doubting Rahul was the one who turned up, out for nought in the first game against Pakistan, labouring to 36 off 39 against Hong Kong, briefly flourishing in the return game against Pakistan (28 off 20), reverting to type against Sri Lanka (6 off 7) and signing off with a flourish in the dead rubber against Afghanistan, when he breezed to 62 off 41.
When he followed that up with 55 off 34 in the first of three games against Australia in Mohali, it triggered the belief that Dr Jekyll was here to stay, but how little we knew. Ten and 1 against Australia, then 51 not out and 57 against South Africa, and now 4 and 9 against Pakistan and Netherlands, respectively, in the T20 World Cup. This is the exact graph of inconsistency a batting coach would ask his ward not to adopt.
All this translates to 319 runs in 12 innings at an average of 29, a strike-rate of 124.12. Neither of that is particularly earth-shattering, the strike-rate specifically a bit of a downer because he is now part of an Indian set-up that has made going after the bowling from the very beginning almost mandatory. True, the two pitches on which India have played in the World Cup have nullified any potential designs of taking on the bowling with disdain, but in the other games, mostly in India where it is far easier to hit through the line, Rahul hasn’t always followed the team template to a 'T’.
Not unsurprisingly, Vikram Rathour, the Indian batting coach, sprang to the defence of his vice-captain. “He's been batting really well and he's batted really well in the practice games, also. Every batsman has his own game plan, the important thing is partnerships,” he said on Saturday afternoon. “And it’s not as if Rahul can’t score quickly. He has done that before and I am sure he will do it again soon.”
You didn’t need Rathour to point out that India aren’t even remotely close to considering leaving Rahul out of the playing XI. At this point, it would appear a knee-jerk reaction, particularly with an all-win India on the cusp of a semifinal berth. Rahul needs to be nursed through this tricky phase in the conviction that once he rediscovers his mojo, he will be an entirely different beast altogether. That he is Rohit Sharma’s deputy means he will need to be handled with greater sensitivity than say anyone other than Virat Kohli, which can at once be a boon and a bane.
Rahul will be aware, as much as anyone else, that he must start pulling his weight consistently. One isolated gem in a sea of mediocrity is far less than what he is capable of, or what he has been picked for. In so many ways, he appears to be his worst enemy; if he can find, or be shown, a way to re-embrace his positive inner self, the ramifications can easily be imagined.
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