I always find the criticism around KL Rahul quite extraordinary: Tom Moody

The Delhi Capitals (DC) suffered a huge defeat against the Gujarat Titans (GT) despite an incredible century from KL Rahul, who carried the team close to 200 in the first innings, even after a slow start at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi. This also made the Capitals' chances in the playoffs even tougher.

Rahul scored an unbeaten 112 off just 65 deliveries, maintaining a phenomenal strike rate of 172.30. Though it was an incredible innings by the 33-year-old batter, there is once again a lot of criticism towards him on how he went about his innings at the start. However, former Australia all-rounder and IPL coach Tom Moody was against the negative criticism towards the 2025 Champions Trophy winner and explained how the other batters should have supported Rahul to get the team to a 200+ total. 

“I always find the criticism around KL Rahul quite extraordinary. I think he's a lot better player than a lot of people give him credit for. And the way I look at this innings, I think it's an outstanding innings. And yeah, look, it'll depend who wins the game to whether he's, you know, the Player of the Match or not but the way I look at this and I look at the batting card, what's let them down and not reaching that 220 is the other batters that were in only struck at 150. On a [batting-friendly] surface, you want impact,” the two-time World Cup winner said on ESPNCricinfo.

“When you've got someone in there that's anchoring, that's building the total, your role when you come in is to impact the game - 30 off ten balls, those types of innings, that suddenly take you to that 220. Instead of pointing the finger at the same person, I think it's the other way around,” Moody added.

This is not an individual sport: Tom Moody

Moody further supported his statement by mentioning that the game of cricket not being an individual sport, and said there should have been better communication among the batters who came into bat with him. Moody also mentioned that Rahul had faced fewer deliveries in the middle phase, which led to him losing a bit of rhythm in the innings.

“The team had the opportunity to get it to 220. The team didn't do that, This is not an individual sport. This is a team sport. And that's where the communication around who's coming in and the communication when you're out there: 'okay, we need to target two boundaries at the beginning of this over; let's make this a big over', that type of conversations,” the 59-year-old IPL winning coach said.

“To me, they just lay idle a little bit in that middle [period]. And also, we've got to recognise KL Rahul, I believe, only faced four [six] balls in a period of four overs in the middle of that. So, therefore, you know, he lost a bit of his rhythm as well,” Moody concluded.