‘Time To Transform Our White-Ball Cricket’: KL Rahul On Learnings From South Africa Series Loss

KL Rahul had a forgettable stint as stand-in captain of the Indian team in the three-match one-day international series against South Africa, which ended with a 0-3 whitewash for the the tourists. Rahul had also led India in the second Test match in Johannesburg after Virat Kohli pulled out due to injury and the team had lost that match too. While head coach Rahul Dravid has backed KL Rahul for leading the team at a time when some key players are missing, there have been many former Indian cricketers who have not been extremely pleased with his captaincy style.

Speaking about the learnings he has had from the series in South Africa during a conversation with India Today, Rahul spoke about how the team is planning to change its approach in white-ball cricket with the focus being on the upcoming World Cups in ODIs and T20Is.

“We are at a stage right now here we have World Cups as the focus and we are working towards certain things. We are working towards getting better as a team and working. We have played some very good cricket over the past four or five years but I guess it is time for us to get better and transform our white-ball cricket. That’s been the chat and we want to work on certain things.

“I don’t want to use that as an excuse for not winning but we are a work in progress as a team and for me it was a first time leading. It was great to be honest because you learn so much from losses. Losses make you stronger than when you start off with victories,” Rahul said.

Promoted

Rahul will be the new Indian Premier League franchise Lucknow Super Giants. He was named captain of the team by Sanjeev Goenka, chairperson of the RP-SG group, which owns the new franchise. The other two draft picks for Lucknow were Marcus Stoinis and Ravi Bishnoi.