KL Rahul, India batter and Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) captain made a U-turn on his old statement about the strike rate in T20 cricket. This was in response to being asked on the new approach taken by his team in ongoing IPL 2024.
Rahul’s tempered approach to T20 cricket has frequently been criticized, but the India batsman has always believed that the statistic of strike rate in the shortest format is an “overrated” topic.
“Look, I think strike rate is very, very overrated. For me, it’s only about how I can win games for my team,” Rahul, who was then the skipper of Kings XI Punjab, said in 2020.
Then as the captain of the Lucknow Super Giants in IPL 2023, Rahul had said: “Strike rate depends upon the demand, like if you chase 140 – you don’t need to go with 200 strike rate – it depends upon the current situation.”
But on Sunday, at the toss of the LSG v KKR match, Rahul accepted that amid the changing dynamics of the game, where 220 is becoming almost a norm, strike rate has emerged to become an important factor.
“There’s been a lot of talk about strike-rates and the format is changing. Even 220 is now safe. It is evolving,” said Rahul after LSG won the toss and opted to bowl first.
Why are you replying to any outside noise: Sunil Gavaskar on Virat Kohli’s criticism of experts and fans
These words of KL Rahul came in midst of the recent word of war between Virat Kohli and Sunil Gavaskar. Kohli had blasted the critics and experts over his strike rate against spinners after scoring 70 not out of 44 balls against Gujarat Titans in Ahmedabad last week.
However, the former India opener Sunil Gavaskar, said that the commentators only criticised him when he would get out before the slog overs after registering a strike rate of below 120.
“Commentators questioned only when the strike rate was 118. I’m not too sure. I don’t watch too many matches, so I don’t know what the other commentators have said otherwise. But if you have a strike of 118 and then you get out in the 14th or the 15th with a strike-rate of 118, I mean, if you want applause for that, that’s a little bit different. That’s different,” he told Star Sports.
Gavaskar also chastised Kohli for responding to “outside noise,” despite players often stating that they don’t care what detractors think about their game.
“All these guys talk about, oh we don’t care about outside noise. Then why are you replying to any outside noise or whatever it is. We all played a bit of cricket, not a lot of cricket. We don’t have agendas. We speak about what we see. We don’t necessarily have any likes and dislikes. Even if we have likes and dislikes, we actually speak on what is happening,” added Gavaskar.
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