India’s star opener KL Rahul has opened up about playing under the three great captains of the Indian cricket team. Notably, Rahul’s India debut came back in 2014 at the time of legendary MS Dhoni‘s leadership, and he later went on to play under the likes of modern-day legends Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.
Talking about his experience of playing under such great leaders at “The Ranveer Show” podcast, Rahul started by showering praise on Dhoni and addressing him as his first captain. He also lauded the 2011 World Cup-winning skipper for his calmness and relationship-building quality.
“I have been captained by such great leaders, starting with MS Dhoni, while he was playing, you know he was the captain, he was my captain, my first captain. I have seen how he handled the team and his calmness, the things that he does behind the scenes like building a relationship with each person are something that I have learned from him. You know, you need to build a relationship where these boys will fight for you and will be with you. That is something I learned from him,” said Rahul.
Later in the interaction, the Karnataka cricketer spoke about Kohli and called his aggression and passion a driving force for the youngsters to win the games. He even asserted that the stats of the Indian team under Kohli’s leadership are self-explanatory to define his greatness as the side’s leader. It is noteworthy that the former India skipper has also captained Rahul during the latter’s days in the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) franchise in the Indian Premier League (IPL).
“Then Virat Kohli was our leader for six-seven years and the thing is that the Indian team did under him, the stats are there to be seen and it was phenomenal. the passion, the aggression brought in, he set the standard really high, and his way of leading and captaining was like leading from the front and showing the team how to achieve greatness. He did that and we all jumped on board, we got inspired by the things that he was doing and we tried to be a better version of ourselves and that is something that Virat created and gave each player the power or the realisation to do that you don’t have to settle for mediocre,” Rahul shared his insight on Kohli’s captaincy.
Meanwhile, on current ODI and Test skipper Rohit, Rahul mentioned that the opener is diligent in doing his pre-match preparations and has a highly meticulous approach to the game.
“Rohit Sharma, who is like so sharp, as a leader, his strategies, he does a lot of homework before the game, he knows each person’s strengths and what he will do and he’s put under pressure, where you need to attack him or where are the flaws in his technique and like he is really really good at strategies and understanding the game. All these things are the things I have learned from these people,” said Rahul.
On the work front, Rahul recently underwent thigh surgery and is recovering from the injury sustained during a match in IPL 2023. The injury resulted in him missing out on the remaining part of the ongoing tournament and also the upcoming World Test Championship Final.
