Rahul's 77 off 51 balls helped DC to a 25-run victory over CSK on Saturday
India wicketkeeper-batter KL Rahul credited India and former Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) batting coach Abhishek Nayar for the improvement in his T20 game following his match-winning 77 off 51 balls for Delhi Capitals (DC) against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) on Saturday.
After losing opening partner Jake Fraser-McGurk for a duck in the first over, Rahul stayed at the crease until the last over. He hit three sixes and six boundaries in his knock, helping DC win by 25 runs.
Nayar has been part of the Indian dressing room as part of Gautam Gambhir’s coaching staff. India won the Champions Trophy 2025 in Dubai, in which Rahul played a crucial role with 140 runs from four innings. He remained not out on three occasions to see India past the line.
“I have worked really hard on my white-ball game. I have worked a lot on my white-ball game with Abhishek Nayar ever since he came to the Indian team for hours and hours together. I somehow forgot the fun of hitting boundaries and sixes along the way. I wanted to take the game deep and that somehow stuck in my head,” Rahul said in a chat with DC mentor Kevin Pietersen for IPL’s official website.
“But now I realised that cricket’s changed and especially T20 cricket has changed. It’s only about hitting boundaries and sixes and the team that hits most wins. So I’m back to enjoying my cricket and not thinking about all the other stuff – just see the ball and be aggressive by putting the pressure on the bowler,” Rahul added.
Rahul, who has over 4,000 runs in the Indian Premier League (IPL) to his name, felt that his knock lacked fluency in the beginning, which took 15-20 runs off DC’s total of 183/6 in 20 overs.
“The opposition got stuck in the middle overs just as I was. I might’ve left 15-20 runs at the back end. At the beginning, I was trying to hit boundaries but not timing it well. But a little break (Strategic Timeout) really helped and I immediately got going,” Rahul said.
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Rahul also spoke about dealing with the highly humid summer heat in Chennai and batting on an empty stomach.
“I was cooked. It was really humid and I was hungry before the game, didn’t eat anything,” the 32-year-old said.
Rahul also credited teammates Abishek Porel (33 off 20 balls), Axar Patel (21 off 14 balls), Sameer Rizvi (20 off 15 balls), and Tristan Stubbs (24 not out off 12 balls) for their contributions to the score.
“Sometimes you don’t credit these quick 20 runs. Axar, Sam (Rizvi) and Abishek they all walked in and contributed runs. In the context of this game, those are huge and they took the pressure off me. Those partnerships really worked well for the team and that’s what we can build on,” Rahul.
The opener also joked with Pietersen, who had once criticised his batting style for being too sluggish.
“It’s better than ‘watching paint dry on the wall’…that was your tweet about me one day,” Rahul joked with Pietersen as the duo walked back to the dressing room.
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