KL Rahul’s scintillating unbeaten 152 against Punjab Kings in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) season has once again brought to the fore the paradox posed by the 34-year-old in 20-over cricket.

Often criticised for his slow strike, Rahul has also shown glimpses of his aggressive avatar with knocks such as the 67-ball 152 on Saturday, which is the highest individual score by an Indian in the league’s history.

Former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar believes that Rahul possesses the skills to excel in the shortest format at any position, provided he doesn’t put too much of a premium on his wicket.

“KL Rahul has the ability to make an impact at any position. And I believe that if he thinks too much, the opening position is slightly risky because then he starts thinking that in these 20 overs, I’m a crucial player in the side,” Manrekar said on Sportstar’s Insight Edge podcast.

“And that’s when he has those 20 balls, you know, (slow) start. And that’s a dangerous one. I’m saying that today, and come the playoffs, if he does that and gets out in trying to accelerate, that’s a lot of damage done.

“Down the order, he doesn’t have to think. He just has to go and start hammering, as he does for India in 50-over cricket. So, I like him down the order, at the top of the order, provided he doesn’t think that his wicket matters.”

After batting in the middle order for the bulk of the last season for Delhi Capitals, Rahul has played as an opener in all games this year. Though he started this season with scores of 0 and 1, he bounced back with two fifties before smashing a scorching hundred.

Manjrekar believes Rahul has also been at the receiving end of some role-clarity confusion at Delhi Capitals.

“… With KL Rahul, there’s been some sort of role-clarity confusion for him as well. So, he originally was at number four for DC. Now he’s opening,” Manjrekar said, while acknowledging that DC’s lower-order firepower has allowed Rahul to play with more freedom.

Though Rahul has struck at an impressive 187.89 this season, Manjrekar highlighted the batter’s slow starts.

“So, he plays these kinds of innings, but the very next innings could be 20 of 20 balls. Starts off very slow for some reason… Even when he got a 90 recently, his first 20 balls, he got 20, 25 runs. The problem with that approach is that when you decide to change gears, OK, you’ve got 24 off, say, 21 balls or 32 of 24 balls. OK, now the time has come for me to accelerate. You’re taking a risk always. And if you get out at that time, trying to take a risk, and that has happened a lot with KL Rahul, more when he was batting for Punjab Kings. Then you’ve done your team harm because you can’t recover 20 balls or 30 balls; 30 balls is 25 per cent of the entire innings. And if you’ve gone at a strike rate of 110, you’re done, you’re finished. You won’t get as many runs on the board. So, that’s a very dangerous ploy.”

The likes of Rahul have often been termed ‘anchors’, a role that Manjrekar believes has no place in modern-day T20 cricket.

“I believe, in T20 cricket, no batter has the right to anchor the innings. When you have eight pure batters of a certain quality and just 20 overs, you just don’t have the right, especially when you’re batting first. You see a lot of teams get 190, 200 and lose games because there’s been somebody at the top who’s got 20 of 20 balls and went on to maybe accelerate later. But those 20, if they were 35, 40, you’ve got those 10, 15 extra runs. And with the impact sub, even more reason for nobody to start off getting 20 or 20, unless it is chasing 140, 150.”

Drawing a parallel between Rahul and Virat Kohli, Manjrekar said the latter had evolved his game and had started scoring more briskly by shunning the idea that he was indispensable to the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) lineup.

“Someone like KL Rahul and Virat Kohli’s style is similar in the way they sort of master and structure their innings. And I’ll say this, very methodical. And Kohli often talks about how he calculates when to attack, when to take that single… It’s only that he’s decided that he’s going to bat quicker. And why was it decided? Because you could see the pressure building and people talking about him batting a little too slow. This 150 strike rate was 125, 133 four years back.

“And it was only because Virat Kohli would hit a boundary and then pick up a one or two, because he wanted to extend his innings and play longer, because he felt that he had to be the man batting most of the innings and didn’t quite trust the batters down the order. RCB changed when Virat Kohli at the top started batting a little quicker and didn’t make himself sort of almost indispensable. And that’s when the others also blossomed under him.”

Published on Apr 27, 2026