Opener K L Rahul batted alongside Suryakumar Yadav as the duo struck half-centuries to take India to victory against South Africa in the opening T20I on Wednesday.
Despite his half-century, a stat will stick like a sore thumb on Rahul's CV.
Statistician Mohandas Menon tweeted an interesting detail on Wednesday: 'KL Rahul's 56-ball match-winning fifty is now the slowest ever in T20I history by a player from a Test nation!#IndvSA #IndvsSA
#SAvInd #SAvsInd.
He played 26 of the 36 balls in the powerplay overs scoring just 11 runs!
Rahul has been panned over his poor strike. However, his career T20I strike-rate is 140 plus across 61 games, but it is primarily because he makes it up during the back-10 of an innings.
'Strike rates are taken on an overall basis. You never see that a batter has played at a certain strike rate (throughout). Whether it was important for him to play at a strike rate of 200 or whether the team could have still won with the batter playing at 100 or 120, these things are not always analysed. So when you look at, it looks slow,' Rahul said at a recent presser.
After Wednesday's snail-paced batting, fans questioned his place in the team, while adding that his 'body language' left a lot to be desired.
With limited prep time ahead of the T20 World Cup, Rahul has only a couple of more opportunities to work on his strike rate and justify his place in the squad for the mega event Down Under starting next month.
