KL Rahul: 'Back to enjoying my cricket, not thinking about taking it deep'

KL Rahul hasn't waited long to make a splash at IPL 2025 after his belated entry - he was on paternity leave the first two games for Delhi Capitals (DC) - and puts it down to being "back to enjoying my cricket". His 15 in his first game came off five balls, and the match-winning 77 against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) on Saturday off 51 balls. The new approach is because "the team that hits more boundaries and sixes ends up winning the game".

Since IPL 2019, Rahul hadn't topped 138.8 as far as the strike rate for a season goes. This included dips of 129.34 (2020) and 113.22 (2023) even as he scored between 520 and 670 runs in every season bar 2023, when he played just nine games. Being relieved of the captaincy (at Lucknow Super Giants) and being with DC as just a player seem to have freed him up.

"I've worked really hard on my white-ball game the last year or so. Big shoutout to Abhishek Nayar. I've worked a lot with him ever since he's come into the Indian team," Rahul said in a chat with DC team mentor Kevin Pietersen on iplt20.com after DC's win over CSK. "We've spent hours and hours together talking about my white-ball game and how I can be better. We worked hours and hours together in Bombay and somewhere I have found the fun playing white-ball cricket."

This was on display at the recent Champions Trophy, which India won, too. Rahul was the designated wicketkeeper and finisher, and had three unbeaten innings out of the four times he went out, scoring 140 runs at a strike rate of 97.90. There were five fours and five sixes in the 140.

He has already hit eight fours and four sixes this IPL, and if the trend doesn't change, he should go well beyond the 45 fours and 19 sixes he his last season, which ended with a much-talked-about, very public discussion with LSG owner Sanjeev Goenka. Goenka said after the season that he wanted to retain players who "have a mindset to win". Rahul wasn't retained. He said later that he wanted to be "loved, cared for and respected" by his team, and that he "wanted to start fresh".

"I think somewhere along the way I lost that fun of hitting boundaries and hitting sixes. I wanted to take the game deep, deep, deep and that somehow stuck in my head," Rahul, who had once come under fire for saying "strike rate is very, very overrated", told Pietersen. "But now I have realised I need to go back… cricket's changed, and T20 cricket, especially, is only about hitting boundaries. The team that hits more boundaries and sixes ends up winning the game.

"So back to enjoying my cricket. I am not thinking too much about the game, not thinking about taking it deep or none of that stuff. Just see [the] ball and try and be aggressive and put the pressure on the bowler and the opposition and just enjoy hitting boundaries."