It would be hard to argue against Rahul’s knock against Australia on Sunday being his best ever
Remember the famous Batman quote from the Dark Knight? It goes like this: ‘You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.'
It’s an incredibly powerful dialogue, but it’s not always true. Sometimes, you start off as the villain, go on a redemption arc and see yourself become the hero. In KL Rahul, we’re witnessing a living, breathing example of the same.
It’s been a crazy timeline for Rahul. He’s been playing international cricket for less than a decade and while there have been some remarkable highs, he’s seen the rockiest of rock bottoms.
He’s hit lows and has seen dark places that no athlete wishes to come across. He was, not too long ago, unequivocally the most disliked player in his own country.
The pain he endured can never probably be erased, but for what it’s worth, that is all in the past. In the here and now, Rahul is a hero. Not just ‘a hero’ but ‘The Hero’.
Prior to Sunday, Rahul had played a total of 180 games for India but somehow, he never had *that* moment to show for. The one moment, when he retires, he can point to and say, “well that was me”.
Make no mistake, he’s had plenty of great moments — the finest probably being his showing in the 2017 Border-Gavaskar Trophy — but not that one stand out moment that immortalizes his legacy.
Kohlihas innumerable such moments but anyway, to name a few — Hobart 2012, Mohali 2016, MCG 2022.
Rohithas the 264 vs Sri Lanka. Rishabh Pant has GABBA. Bumrahhas MCG 2018.
After Sunday, Rahul can proudly point to Chennai 2023 as his moment.
Rahul has played a truckload of world-class knocks in his career but, all things considered, it’d be hard to argue against hisknock versus Australia on Sunday being his best ever — even accounting for recency bias.
A World Cup game against Australia is a high pressure situation in itself but Rahul walked in with the side teetering at 2 for 3, with the best ODI bowler of this century bowling rockets from one end, and the world’s number one ODI bowler jagging the ball both ways from the other. This was a sh*t sandwich if there ever was one.
Failure was not an option. Especially for Rahul, who was at the heart of the 5/3 fiasco at Old Trafford against New Zealand four years ago. Two valuable World Cup points were at stake, but so were Rahul’s own reputation and team India’s dignity.
Failure at that point, in all likelihood, would have led to the following chain of events: Rahul gets branded a ‘choker’ -> India lose -> Fans get outraged -> Fans and Media, impatient and infuriated, call for heads to roll -> There is mayhem and fury one game into the World Cup.
One result should never trigger such a fallout but that’s how it works in this part of the world.
Rahul, then, had the weight of the world on his shoulders. For him to go and get an unbeaten 97 in this situation, to guide the side home, was nothing short of supranormal.
It’s not often that Virat Kohli ends up being the inferior batter in a partnership in terms of solidity and stability, especially on a bowler-friendly surface, but that was the case at Chepauk on Sunday. At one end there was Kohli, who was fidgety, always flirting with danger, keeping Australia interested and on the other there was Rahul, who was impenetrable.
Kohli eventually tightened up and entered beast mode, but that he was able to bat himself into rhythm was down to Rahul blunting, frustrating and punishing the Australian attack in the first 15 or so overs.
Rahul’s knock on Sunday, in a way, was a microcosm of his stint as a middle-order batter in the past three years. You felt secured and assured while watching him and you always got the sense that he *will* get the job done. Not once did you get that ‘uh oh’ feeling.
It’s a stark contrast to four years ago when he opened the batting, where it felt like he would get out every other ball. He was fidgety to the core and lacked control over his own game and technique.
That is simply not the case anymore. Not only is Rahul now an evolved batter, he understands his game and has complete authority over his technique. He is also in a very good headspace, perhaps for the first time ever in white-ball cricket.
For a man whose contributions have always been heavily scrutinized, and for a man who has seldom been celebrated and showered with love, you could only imagine how cathartic it would have been to see 35,000 people in the stadium — and a billion outside of it, spread across the world — screaming their hearts out for him.
Rahul has always been a player that’s divided opinion but on Sunday, he united an entire country.
And that is how you live long enough to see yourself become the hero.
