NEW DELHI, Apr 19
For Indian cricket fans, it has been over a decade waiting for an ICC trophy. The Indian cricket team agonisingly came close to ending the title drought on November 19, 2023 in Ahmedabad during the ODI World Cup final, before Australia shattered their dreams and extended a billion fans’ wait.
KL Rahul, who top-scored for India in the World Cup final with 66, recently opened up about his regrets of not sticking through to the end of the innings. “The World Cup final against Australia, I was stuck in the moment, whether to take down (Mitchell) Starc or just play him as it was reversing, bowling in tough angle – in that confusion I ended up nicking it – if I could have played till the end, it could have been 30-40 more runs & probably World Cup in our hands – that is what I regret,” Rahul confessed to teammate Ravichandran Ashwin during a chat.
During the tournament, India looked on course to clinching their third ODI World Cup trophy as Rohit Sharma’s men were on a stunning 10-match winning spree, and won most of the games rather comprehensively, before eventually falling short against Australia in the final played at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.
In the final, skipper Rohit Sharma set the tone with a belligerent 31-ball 47 but the middle-order struggled to come to terms with the nature of the pitch against Australia’s bowling attack. India eventually managed to get to 240 in 50 overs, with fifties from Virat Kohli and Rahul but that total never looked threatening for the visitors, who rode on a whirlwind Travis Head century (137) to romp to a six-wicket win and clinch their sixth World Cup title.
KL Rahul, who started his Indian Premier League (IPL) career under Virat Kohli at the Royal Challengers Bengaluru, currently tottering at the bottom of the IPL 2024 points tally, revealed that he would have loved to finish his IPL career at the same franchise.
“I would have also loved to play for Bangalore. I had started there, I would have liked to finish there and that was there in my head. But the beauty of IPL is that you get to go into different teams with different players,” said Rahul, who is currently captaining the Lucknow Super Giants.
Rahul was roped in by RCB after a remarkable 2013 Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament. However, one season later, Rahul left the franchise to play for Sunrisers Hyderabad at Rs 1 crore. Rahul could only manage 20 runs in the 2013 season but went on to score 166 runs in 2014. He made his Test debut in the same year. In 2016, Rahul returned to the RCB and accumulated 397 runs from 14 appearances. The Karnataka batter was later roped in by the Punjab Kings for a whopping sum of Rs 11 crore, and after three seasons at the franchise, he took over as the captain of the Lucknow Super Giants in 2022.
