K.L. Rahul’s rise has been meteoric. He made his first-class debut five years ago, but things only began to move at a furious click in the last two seasons. A resolute, yet elegant batsman, Rahul came to the fore in Karnataka’s 2013-14 campaign, where he scored 1,033 runs in the Ranji Trophy. He played a huge role in Karnataka’s ascent to the Ranji Trophy title, which the side supplemented by bagging the Irani Cup and the Vijay Hazare honours as well.
Timing is everything, they say. A little after the stellar Ranji Trophy run, and just ahead of India’s tour to Australia late last year, Rahul forced his way into international cricket with centuries in both innings of the Duleep Trophy final (for South Zone against Central Zone). An India call-up arrived, and he was off to Australia, perhaps the toughest assignment for a debutant, in all of sport.
The match itself was nothing short of a nightmare. Scores of three and one, both marked by uncharacteristically nerve-ridden dismissals, and a couple of dropped catches in the third Test at Melbourne raised plenty of uncomfortable questions about Rahul’s calibre, or lack thereof, at the highest level.
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Ugly, unflattering tweets and offline reactions on his inclusion in the Indian team began to emerge, and Rahul would have surely struggled to clear all the noise around his ears. “After my failure in the Melbourne Test, the pressure was on. I kept telling myself that I had to do something big in the next Test,” Rahul says, at an Adidas shoe launch event here recently.
In a most remarkable of turnarounds, the next Test at Sydney saw Rahul register a century. The image of Rahul after he reached the milestone captures only a hint of celebration. The opener was instead overcome with a sense of relief; a burden was lifted. A couple of weeks after the Sydney Test, Rahul returned to the domestic scene a confident man. A 337 against Uttar Pradesh – the highest score by a Karnataka batsman in a first-class match in a Ranji Trophy group game against Uttar Pradesh kept his run going. As the team’s unabated progress continued, Rahul stepped up once again.
In the tournament final against Tamil Nadu, he scored 188 in the company of triple-centurion Karun Nair, to guide Karnataka to its second successive Ranji Trophy title. This innings was particularly sweet, as Rahul batted through a hamstring injury. “The physio (Shravan) and trainer (Prashant Pujar) did a wonderful job. We spent a sleepless night to get me ready to bat the next day,” Rahul says.
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The 22-year-old states that he is not particularly surprised with all success that has come his way. “Honestly, it is not (a surprise to me). I always knew that I would do well when I got my chance. As a youngster, I worked on most parts of my game. I have always trained to get better. It was only a matter of time before I got my chance. When that chance came, I valued it. But, I don’t want to stop here and think about what I have achieved. The trick is to keep my mind focussed on the tasks ahead all the time.”
Rahul attributes this confidence and mental strength to his formative years spent in Mangaluru. He did move to Bengaluru when he was in his teens, but the cricketer says that the time spent in his home-town toughened him up for battles that lay ahead. “Mangaluru is very close to my heart. I grew up playing cricket there; I learnt all my tricks and skills there. The people have always been good to me, even when I did not do well in my debut Test. There are a few struggles that a small-town guy has to go through. I wouldn’t really call it a struggle though, because it builds character. I did not get a lot of facilities in Mangaluru, compared to what I get now. There were no bowling machines or turf wickets, so my coach and I had to find ways to compensate for it. My coach had to think of different ways to give me a feel of top-level cricket. These are welcome struggles – it made me strong as a person. It has made me who I am now.”
Rahul mentions that he is lucky to have had the right circumstances in the past, and as for the present, he says: “My life is in best place that it could be.”