The Batsman Returns: How KL Rahul reworked approach, regained stability

“Can we meet for dinner, tonight?” Just just like the previous occasions, however David Mathias sensed that message from his greatest buddy KL Rahul was a bit completely different. It was 2019, Rahul was dropped from the Indian group, feeling “most useless and negative he had ever felt in life” (Rahul’s phrases), and life wanted to be circled.
The associates met and determined to discover a technique to beat negativity and fall again in love with the sport. Cricket in anonymity, with associates, was determined as the best way to go. They selected the bottom close to the Bangalore airport the place a buddy Tejas Subramaniam runs Just Cricket Academy. Every day, early within the morning, for the following 10 days or so, a gaggle of associates, all cricketers, would drive away from town.
David Mathais, Rahul’s buddy and former Karnataka bowling allrounder, particulars the comeback story. (Express Photo)
It didn’t take lengthy for Mathias to identify the issue in Rahul’s batting. In 2018, in England, Rahul had been caught on the crease and taking part in throughout the entrance pad. Problems with the incoming ball. Problems with figuring out the off stump. Problems with hitting the ball too arduous. Problems with the palms, head, and ft. It had appeared insurmountable, nearly. Not to the chums.
“I might see that he was having issues with the incoming ball and that the bat was too far-off from the physique and head was falling, “Mathias tells The Indian Express. “I felt that palms have been away from the physique and because the bat tends to be heavy, it will get to be dragged even additional away. When the pinnacle isn’t in an amazing place, then your bat doesn’t journey in a straight path. When the ball is available in there’s a hole to undergo. And top-class bowlers can exploit it simply, and so they did.

🗣️🗣️ “2021 has been a special year for us.”
Vice-captain @klrahul11 sums up 2021 for #StaffIndia and speaks concerning the historic win at Centurion👍#SAvIND pic.twitter.com/B9glXK36Xe
— BCCI (@BCCI) December 30, 2021
“That’s what I felt. I just saw it and said it. I must have said 10 other useless things but that one landed home! I didn’t realise that would make such a large difference eventually in his batting.”
Two dismissals screamed about the issue from that 2018 Test collection. Chris Woakes and Ben Stokes had reduce the ball in to clatter the stumps and the pad. The bat would come from a wider arc and by the point the downward swing could be in movement, the ball could be reducing in in the direction of hazard that Rahul would attempt to yank his bat down even faster. It would come down all crooked. The head would fall outdoors the road of the off-stump. He was a sitting duck to each the nipbackers and the straighteners.
As the ten days wore on, and because the downside was noticed very early on within the piece, Rahul began to calm down and begin falling in love with batting once more. “It was a calm relaxed environment. Even the academy boys weren’t there then. And the coaches are the ones we all have worked with from childhood. No judgement. No tension. Just friends, bowling and hitting the ball around for hours and hours.” They recorded his batting too, checked with the previous movies, and realised that it had all begun to sync in. Rahul was comfortable that he wasn’t going too arduous on the ball as soon as the palms and head fell in place.

***
“It comes from good hard work on balance in the stance. The alignment at the crease,” Mathias says. That stability is the important thing for Rahul. “He doesn’t commit to any one shot. He is in a very neutral but strong position. It sounds very simple but under pressure, it’s hard to do it. Only a few do it. Because of that balance, you can access areas on grounds leaving a short margin to bowlers to err. The pressure is now on them. The flaws against incoming balls disappeared, his judgement of the off stump became good and since he loves batting so much and faced failure, his patience has improved. He now preys on the bowlers’ patience. The whole game reversed, basically. That’s the essence of his success.”

#StaffIndia vice-captain @klrahul11 is adjudged Man of the Match for his present with the bat.#SAvIND pic.twitter.com/ElbixnZcdU
— BCCI (@BCCI) December 30, 2021
Rahul stands, proper toe pointing in the direction of level however doesn’t get too closed right into a side-on stance too early. The entrance shoulder now factors in the direction of the non-striker or mid-on at occasions and he makes tiny steps along with his left foot because the bowler approaches the crease and hundreds up. Most occasions, it’s two steps – and the closing of the open-ness happens by the point the ball releases. Sort of. The left foot’s actions will not be solely brief but additionally mild steps. Ready to spring into motion, on his toes. He doesn’t stretch ahead an excessive amount of in any case. But today, throughout entrance foot drives, the entrance foot does skip additional than it used to in his unhealthy days. “That’s purely down to confidence but also from the balance and alignment,” Mathias says.
The again leg too begins to inch sideways and solely hardly ever does it get caught. When that occurs, bother can peep in. Like within the second innings of the Centurion. The entrance leg was doing all of the motion and by the point he arrested that, retreated even, the harm was completed. He was cramped in his reduce and the ball flew off the sting to the slips. He had tried an analogous shot within the first innings – again then, the again foot had been dragged sideways in the direction of off, the burden shift to again foot was smoother, and he flayed the shortish ball over gully. Or in opposition to Shaheen Afridi within the T20 world cup recreation. The left foot had strayed throughout, the pinnacle had begun to fall outdoors off stump and from there, it was all an excessive amount of for him to get again in line to that great nipbacker. Similarly, awkward bat-angle will be seen within the 2018 Woakes dismissal too. Another nipbacker, from the right-hander that point, had Rahul taking part in throughout the entrance pad. It nonetheless is the most effective ball to maintain making an attempt in opposition to him. He has sorted out many of the points although and the bowler has to hope for a lax in focus or an over-eagerness to play a shot.

“Just as his stance is neutral, so is his mind now,” says Mathias. “He is tremendously strong mentally. Once the technique thing kicked in – as in felt comfortable with the head position and the bat flow, that was it. The rest he sorted out mentally. Self-doubts vanish. It’s as close to ‘see the ball, play the ball’ – from that great balanced neutral position. And the mindset. He isn’t worrying about what the bowler is bowling, oh is he trying to target with the incoming ball or trying to get the outside edge etc…”
Mathias then shares how Rahul appears to be like at his batting today. “He would say, ‘I stay still and if I am in a good position and balance, I will have an answer wherever the bowler bowls’. That’s his reasoning. And it’s absolutely spot on. That’s the impression I always get when he is batting well. He is doing that regularly now.”
***
The cricketing world has been impressed along with his judgement of the off stump. His expertise was by no means unsure. Even when he wasn’t doing nicely in that 2018 collection, even the opposition have been cautious. One remembers a stray chat with the then batting coach Mark Ramprakash, who went, “Solid batter. Does he realise how good he is?”
The query is now put to Mathias. But first a bit about how the 2 met, and the way lengthy they return, simply to place issues in perspective how nicely the 2 know one another for us.
It was in a U-13 zonal match. Mathias from Bangalore, Rahul from the port metropolis of Mangalore. Mathias now runs a wellness pharmacy with plans to enter preventive care and an eventual tie-up with the sports activities world however again then was a barely aggravated child who felt the runs weren’t coming as a lot as they need to. “So when I got to a fifty in that semi-final game, I celebrated a bit too much. Wild.” And when he took guard once more, Rahul, the wicketkeeper, piped up from behind the stumps. “Haven’t you ever scored a fifty before?!” “And I laughed. We gelled from then on. And would spend 2-3 months together every cricket summer from then all the way till we made to Ranji Trophy squad.”
“It was pre-social media era and we spent our times mostly pulling each other’s leg brutally, fussing about where to eat out – there is no good place in Bangalore that we haven’t gone.” And sometimes to the flicks. “The Batman – Dark Knight returns in particular. I remember we saw that three times in the theatre. We were so taken up that we pulled out the other Batman movies and saw all of them,” Mathias laughs.
The Batman would get inked on Rahul’s flesh too. “He has so many tattoos that I informed him to insure no matter little empty house on his physique and get it sponsored by some skincare firm. He has a behavior of getting a tattoo completed in each nation he visits.

“Of all the tattoos, he was most excited and proud to show that Batman tattoo”. He has inscribed a line from Batman Rises – “Deshi Basara”! “It means “Rise” and it was such a cool scene too,” Mathias. That it was. In that scene, it’s established that solely adrenaline might enhance the physique’s skills past the conventional that Batman wants to flee the actually excessive pit. He makes use of the worry of dying to pump up his adrenaline as he leaps and climbs out of that pit to deafening cries of ‘Deshi Basara’ from the prisoners huddled beneath.

In his actual life, Rahul prefers to climb out of batting pits via his calm and composure. “That’s how he has been all his life. You should see his parents – solid, intelligent (both professors) and calmer than Rahul even. He gets it from them. Doesn’t get flustered much at all.”
Even through the aftermath of that Karan Johar present? Laughter. “Oh yes then too. I remember I met him the day after that. We didn’t chat about it at all. We have an unfiltered relationship – share everything really that upsets or excites us. That didn’t feature much. Mothers of our friends did say, “Oh Rahul was such a good boy in that!” I like Hardik too. He is an effective human, a real man. The solely factor KL informed me is any more if anybody asks you to recount any humorous tales about me, inform them you might have loads however none to share.” One, please? “Nope, nothing!” More laughter.
And so to that Ramprakash question. “KL has a wonderful trait that when he does really well, he doesn’t talk about how good he is. And when he doesn’t do well, he will sit back, analyse and look at what good he did in the past. That’s a wonderful recipe. He stays grounded when he is doing well. When he isn’t doing well, he doesn’t sulk in the underground, he will actively look to bounce back. It also comes through in the way he leads. He cares about collective success, never likes to hog the limelight. Even as a kid, and it hasn’t changed even now. He will make a very good captain when his time comes.”
***
The whispers within the cricketing group in Bangalore when Rahul was younger centred round how a lot he resembles Rahul Dravid in compactness of his batting. Solid defence. Correct approach. The model that has finally offloaded on us in the previous couple of years has been stuffed with outrageous photographs – the lap-flick over square-leg to pacers, the aerial hits over mid-off and canopy and the highly effective biffs in opposition to spin.
According to Mathias, it began after the primary stint with RCB within the IPL in 2013. “He came back absolutely transformed. He had moved with the world-class players there, saw how they prepared, what they could do, and came back obsessed about becoming the best. There is a remarkable transformation in the way he used to bat – was always good, solid, but post that the range of shots and the attacking mindset was staggering. Chalk and cheese,” says Mathias.

“If you ask him, he will say he got lucky but that’s rubbish. The way he went to work to increase his repertoire was something. Where he would drive the ball say to mid-off, now he started to look how he can punch it over the region. Still purist and correct, but the final flourish was different. The mindset was different. That shot over square-leg came because he was very good in the offside and the bowlers had begun to tuck him up. Instead of losing his balance at the crease, he began to use his wrists to lap it up and over. Even the shot he played off Rashid Khan in the recent world cup when he went down on his knees to swat him, he hardly played it even in the IPL. He regularly updates himself.”
A setback had first triggered that strategy of reinvention. When he was dropped from the Ranji Trophy after making his debut within the 2010-11 season, he went to work. “He was a bit thrown off by it. He had never been dropped from any team from U-13 days I think. So this was new, but he didn’t sulk. He worked on his batting. I remember a subsequent game in U-22 where he hit a hundred but said, ‘it was the worst hundred he had hit. Very scratchy’. He doubled up even more in training. He came back to the team and soon IPL happened which lifted his game to another level,” Mathias says. “There is a huge difference in his batting from younger days. No comparison at all. I haven’t seen such a transformation in anyone else.”
In some ways, in Tests, it has been a return to childhood. The compactness is again. The palms at the moment are held near the physique, the downward path of the bat is straighter, the pinnacle doesn’t fall, and the ft hearken to his intuition. “He has put his entire being into his batting. He won’t let it go now. And if it dips, he will go to work again to rebuild it,” Mathias says. “The ability to underplay his success and not crumble when he is doing bad – that’s the thing it will make him great. He will end up as a great, I have no doubts about it.”