'Painful to Watch KL Rahul's Knock Against RCB, He'll Have to Change His Intent': Wasim Jaffer

Former India opener Wasim Jaffer criticised KL Rahul’s batting approach against Royal Challengers Bangalore in the 214-run chase on Monday. Rahul struggled to get going at the flat track of MA Chinnaswamy Stadium and scored just 18 runs off 20 balls as he hits just one boundary. LSG managed to register a nervy one-wicket win as Nicholas Pooran (62 off 19) and Marcus Stoinis (65 off 30) played match-winning knocks to upset RCB at their home ground.

Jaffer described the right-hander’s knock as painful and advised him to change his intent with the bat.

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“I am surprised. It was a bit painful as well. When you are chasing 213 and you are the captain, you need to lead from the front,” Jaffer told ESPNcricinfo.

“Rahul will have to change his intent. LSG have a very good batting line-up. In the current team, Krunal Pandya hasn’t fired yet, same with Deepak Hooda. Also, there is a lot of depth in the batting. He will need to show some intent because the team has really good back-ups. It’s not like LSG would not be able to score runs if Rahul gets out,” he added.

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Jaffer pointed out that Rahul sometimes take some extra time to get settled which put some added pressure on the other batters to take risks.

“We have seen Rahul play blazing knocks, but sometimes in franchise cricket, he takes up a little too much time. That puts pressure on the non-striker and the players in the dugout as well. The other batters thus have to take unnecessary risks. Rahul can play attacking cricket. It’s just that he needs to bat with more positive intent,” he said.

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However, after the match, the LSG skipper defended his timid approach saying that the early wickets forced him to bat cautiously and play according to the situation.

“Not ideal for me, I want to score more runs and get the strike rate up as well. We’ve played on two tough Lucknow wickets, and today we lost 3 wickets so I went slower. I wanted to stay till the end and play with Nicky,” Rahul said in the post-match presentation.

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