Cheteshwar Pujara was not influenced by Kl Rahul’s efforts, he wanted to “save his smallness”.

Even before all the drama in the RR vs DC match unfolded, the hosts could have avoided that situation by batting a bit more aggressively. Or perhaps just KL Rahul should have batted at a better strike-rate, but that was not to be. After batting first, DC managed to score 188, with Rahul contributing 38 from 32 in the innings, with a strike-rate of only 118, the worst among all the other Delhi batters.

KL Rahul’s Poor Strike-rate vs RR

That hasn’t gone down too well with India batter Cheteshwar Pujara, who said that Rahul was looking to save his wicket. “KL, being the senior player, I think he wanted to play 15-20 balls and then go out. But, at the same time, he should have attacked a bit more, because he was set, he had enough chance to look at the pitch, and he knew the conditions by then,” Pujara said on ESPNCricinfo.

“His batting order has changed a bit, too. So, I mean, he is just trying to figure out. He normally does go hard in the powerplay, but after that, that is the period where he needs to be a little more aggressive. It looked like he wanted to save his wicket rather than play his natural game,” Pujara added.

Rahul in IPL 2025

Rahul had a bad outing in the last match as well against MI, where he could only score 15 from 13 deliveries, and was dismissed by Karn Sharma. Meanwhile, in 5 matches he has scored 238 runs at an average of 59 and a strike-rate of 154. He had missed one match for the team, due to the birth of his child.