After a difficult start at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi, KL Rahul‘s amazing century helped the Delhi Capitals (DC) reach over 200 in the first innings, but the club still lost badly against the Gujarat Titans (GT). Additionally, this made the Capitals’ playoff prospects even more difficult.
Rahul kept up an incredible strike rate of 172.30 while scoring an undefeated 112 off just 65 deliveries. Despite the fact that the 33-year-old batsman had an amazing innings, he was once again heavily criticised for the way he began his innings. Nonetheless, former Australia all-rounder and IPL coach Tom Moody defended the 2025 Champions Trophy winner from the criticism, stating that the other hitters ought to have helped Rahul lead the team to a score of 200 or higher.
“I always find the criticism directed against KL Rahul to be really astounding.
He’s a far better player than most people realise, in my opinion. And based on my perspective, this innings is exceptional. And yes, look, it will depend on who wins the game as to whether he is, you know, Player of the Match, but based on my analysis of the batting card, the other batters who were in only hit at 150 are what have let them down and prevented them from reaching that 220. “You want impact on a [batting-friendly] surface,” the two-time World Cup champion said.
When someone is anchoring and increasing the total, your job as a substitute is to influence the game by hitting innings like 30 off 10 balls that get you to 220. I think it’s the other way around, not the other way around,” Moody continued.
This isn’t a sport for individuals: Moody, Tom Moody
In order to bolster his argument, Moody added that cricket is not an individual sport and that the batsmen who batted alongside him need to have communicated more effectively. Rahul lost some of his flow in the innings since he had to deal with less deliveries in the middle part, according to Moody.
The group had a chance to raise it to 220. This isn’t an individual sport, so the team didn’t do that. This sport is team-oriented. The 59-year-old IPL winning coach stated, “That’s where the communication about who’s coming in and the communication when you’re out there: ‘okay, we need to target two boundaries at the beginning of this over; let’s make this a big over’, that kind of conversations.”
They seemed to me to be doing nothing throughout that interim period. Additionally, we must acknowledge that throughout that time, KL Rahul, I believe, faced just four [six] balls in four overs. Therefore, you know, he also lost some of his rhythm,” Moody said.
India
