I talk more about batting to Rahul Dravid and how I can, be better with my batting or how I can create more impact with my batting: KL Rahul 

K L Rahul. 

Khel Today Bureau 

Mumbai: In the realm of sports storytelling, Star Sports soars to new heights with its flagship ‘Believe’ series. The ‘Believe’ series stands as a testament to providing athletes with a voice to share their journeys, offering fans a glimpse into their minds, and inspiring the next generation of sports stars. This trailblazing series, driven by the innate desire of fans for contextually relevant original programming, has become a resounding show of celebrating hero moments, and demonstrating to fans that anything is achievable; inspiring them to ‘Believe’. The episode features KL Rahul detailing his remarkable comeback from a point where walking seemed impossible to becoming India’s wicketkeeper for the World Cup, returning stronger than ever before to be the point of difference in India’s enthralling campaign. 

Catch the Star Sports ‘Believe’ Series KL Rahul episode link – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0Txor8aB1A&t=89s

KL Rahul opens up on his Injuries and rehab before World Cup return performance in an exclusive interaction on Star Sports ‘Believe’ series, “Yeah, but during all of this time, I knew there was pressure to come back and all of that, but I had such a bad event that happened in my life that everything else seemed like, okay, it doesn’t, really matter. Everything else seemed smaller compared to, tearing your quadriceps and going through surgery. I couldn’t walk for the first three or four weeks. I was on the walker and, then slowly started building myself up during all that time. I don’t think it’s possible to make it in time for the World Cup. That’s what the surgeon told us as well. He said it’ll take five months from the time of surgery. Surgery happened in May, so that meant I’d come back just in time for the World Cup, but also, I know how things work, right? You can’t just come straight back into the World Cup. The team wants you to play a few more games before that, just so that they get confidence so that you get confidence. All of that time I was like, okay, I’m just going to take it as it comes. I can’t be stressed.”

KL Rahul shared his experience on working with Rahul Dravid in an exclusive interaction on Star Sports ‘Believe’ series, “The only thing we talk about is how much your back hurts. How tired do you get when you’ve kept 50 overs and then you have to go and bat. It’s mostly about how to manage your energy and manage your body. It’s something that I have done growing up, but, you know, there’s a big break after under 19s, I didn’t keep too much because I didn’t have to. The state that I played for had fabulous wicketkeepers, so I never had to keep wickets. So, I’ve kept in touch with wicket keeping, but it was mostly in the IPLs or 20-20s. Getting to keep a 50-over game is challenging in terms of physical more than anything else. Our conversation mostly is about that and generally, it’s more about batting. I talk more about batting to him and how I can, be better with my batting or how I can create more impact with my batting.”

KL Rahul shares his emotions and memories from 2019 World Cup in an exclusive interaction on Star Sports ‘Believe’ series, “It was 2019, I think whoever played that World Cup, it’s still weighs on you as a heaviness, within you because we never through that World Cup. We never felt like we were not going to win that World Cup because that’s the kind of confidence everybody had in the team everything was falling in place. In the first round, we were challenged. We played some really good games. We were down and out, but we still found a way to win games. So, yeah, there’s a great enthusiasm, but also, there’s confidence. And we knew that we will win a game from any situation whatsoever.”

“So, there was no doubts in our heads. And we never felt even once that we might lose. We were never prepared for a loss. So, that’s what was heartbreaking for us. I mean, like every other World Cup, we worked really hard up until then and the way we lost as well was not easy to accept because, you know, it was half an hour or 10, 15 minutes of, you don’t know what happened and then you lost three or four wickets and then Ravindra Jadeja and MS Dhoni played and had an amazing partnership. And it’s something I think culturally as well, we never want to believe that we can lose, or we always believe that there is a miracle that’s going to happen. It’s always around the corner. There’s someone upstairs who, you know, makes some magic happen for us. And that’s what we felt when Ravindra Jadeja was batting with MS Dhoni, we felt like, okay, this is that magic that’s going to happen, and we will be in the finals.”

KL Rahul further stated on the moments of the dressing room during the Semifinal match against New Zealand, “So it was heartbreaking, and the dressing room was very emotional. I mean, I still remember, you don’t generally see, that many grown men cry, down and out and feel dejected. So yeah, it was not a great memory, but I think we’ve carried our learnings and we’ve come out much stronger. We’ve become better and have better players after 2019. And we’ve learned that, no matter how well we do through the year if we can’t do well in these big semifinals and World Cup games, it really doesn’t mean much or 10 years or 15 years later when we retire we will not remember our career for the runs or wickets that we’ve taken or other bilateral series that we won. World Cups are the only thing that we will remember. So, yeah, there’s that extra fire in us to go a couple of steps further the next time.”

KL Rahul on playing key role for taking DRS calls, shares his experience performance in an exclusive interaction on Star Sports ‘Believe’ series, “I’ve gotten lucky at DRS, and I also feel like it’s a 50 percent luck and 50 percent is just experience. Just being in the right position at the right time. We’ve gotten lucky so far. So yeah, hopefully, a few more games for experience. It is a lot of pressure to make, tell the captain to make a call within 15 seconds is difficult because it’s not that you get blamed if it’s not right. Rohit is understanding that way and he’s a really nice guy. He still knows about some decisions which you don’t know. I have made some errors and he’s like, okay, it was close. We had to take it. We might have to use it if it goes to waste, which is okay. So that also gives you a bit of confidence, to go to your captain and say, okay, maybe we can take the DRS.”