KL Rahul's leadership visible on field as senior player mentors young Indian cricket team

London: KL Rahul has been in international cricket for over a decade now, but for some strange reason, he’s never, even personally, felt like a ‘senior’ in the Indian team. One could be because he spent a vast majority of the time playing alongside Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara, Rohit Sharma, R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja. They held the heavyweight status while the shy Rahul nicely flew under the radar.

Secondly, because Rahul, despite his abundant natural talent, could never feel settled in the team. Inconsistent performances, injuries every time his career appeared to take off after a snag, shuffling of his batting positions… Rahul has struggled to find a stable footing. It’s a no-brainer that for consistent success, stability is important. After much sweat and sacrifice, Rahul has found that, both professionally and personally, and that’s bringing out the best in him.

Rahul’s favourite batting position is opening, and he got to play there without any disruption in the series against England for the first time in a long while, and his satisfaction has been reflected in his performances. The 33-year-old tallied over 500 runs (532) in a series for the first time in his career, scoring two centuries and an equal number of half-centuries, often setting the foundation for the rest of his colleagues to take charge.

More than the batting, which has been impeccable from Rahul, taking all responsibility and living up to it, it has been leadership and mentoring qualities this series that have been the standout feature. At every ‘nets’ session where the Indians bat in pairs, Rahul was often seen having long discussions with the young crop of players like Yashasvi Jaiswal and Sai Sudharsan, and even his long-time friend Karun Nair who struggled to turn good starts into big scores. He would observe what wrongs they were doing and what should be the course correction. It was rare sight for a player to make notes of others and offer advice.

Leadership

Rahul’s leadership qualities were visible many times on the field too. Even when captain Shubman Gill was out there, Rahul could be seen making field changes. It’s obvious Gill has given that licence to his senior partner and Rahul was always an effervescent presence on the field, at times walking out from the slip cordon to have a word with the bowlers when they were going errant. 

Rahul, in a candid post-match chat with Dinesh Karthik, said the absence of the superstars hit him when he landed in England for the warm-up games and since then wanted to take more responsibility in grooming the next generation. “Yeah, I think it hit me when I joined the team. I was here about two weeks earlier playing for India A and it didn’t hit me back then. But once I joined the team and I looked around and I didn’t have Rohit and Virat and Ashwin who I played all my cricket with.

“Just to look around and not see them felt a bit weird. But yeah, that’s when it hit me that everyone else is looking at me, coming to me to ask about English conditions, what they need to do, how they need to prepare.

“And that’s when it hit me that, ‘okay, I’ve stepped into a different role now and it’s time for me to help the younger guys. Use all the experience I’ve had of playing Test cricket and international cricket over the years and really put my hand up and stand up for this team.’”

This assured Rahul, now father of a young child, is what India was wanting for a long time. And it augurs well for the future.