India batter KL Rahul recently opened up about his first interaction with Virat Kohli and revisited his debut IPL season with Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in 2013. That year, Rahul played only five matches, managing 20 runs from two innings.
On Monday, January 26, Rahul featured in a video shared on the YouTube channel The Switch, where he spoke with former England cricketer Kevin Pietersen. Reflecting on his maiden IPL campaign, Rahul recalled meeting his cricketing idols for the first time and highlighted that Kohli was warm and approachable, showing no signs of arrogance.
Rahul stated:
“I think I was 21. I think IPL really was the first time where I actually saw my heroes and people who had done wonderful things in international cricket.”
“Played with Chris Gayle, Ab de Villiers, and Virat Kohli, Zaheer Khan, all of these guys in the RCB team and that was my first time where I could actually see people and see my heroes and go, okay, this is what they do and this is what they’ve done to get to where they are.”
“Yeah, so with Virat, from the moment I met him, he was very, very welcoming, and he never had that arrogance about him being a superstar,” he added.
“I Was Like A Sponge”: KL Rahul On His First Season With RCB
In the same video, KL Rahul also disclosed that during his debut IPL season with RCB, he engaged with everyone in the squad, including Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers and Chris Gayle, and made a conscious effort to learn something from each of them. Rahul shared:
“Even though I didn’t play much, I closely observed everyone on and off the field, learned about training from Virat, skills from AB, power-hitting from Chris, and absorbed everything like a sponge to improve and aim for international cricket.”
“IPL’s a huge platform, IPL’s a huge opportunity, and yeah, I didn’t wanna miss it at all, so I did everything that I could, almost to a point where I was a pain in the a*s for a lot of players, and we were at after parties and I’d be there.”
“Talking cricket. AB, how can I get better at doing this? Yeah, yeah, I didn’t get it in the beginning and then some of my teammates had to tell me that, look, boss, like, relax,” he added.
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