'She's always been with me through everything' - KL Rahul gets candid on support he received from wife Athiya Shetty during injury

KL Rahul shares his thoughts and approach towards cricket as a youngster in an exclusive interview with Star Sports ‘Believe’ series – “I think it must be that obsession and love for cricket because I can't find any other logical reasons for, how I made it this far and always had that belief. Yeah, I just grew up watching a lot of cricket. My dad just loved cricket. The whole family loved cricket. So you know, if I wasn't playing cricket, I was watching cricket, whoever played in whichever part of the world I would, still watch it. Like I said, my dad loved watching. So we would sit together and watch the games.”         

KL Rahul, shares his love and passion for playing cricket and the belief from family and his coach in Mangalore “It was a bit of an obsession as well for me that I need to play cricket. I love the sport so much. I need to make something of it. I need to make a life out of this. And yeah, I believe with a lot of hard work and everyone who's made it in the team has their own stories or struggles, and I'm no different. I had to go through the same thing, but I wouldn't want it any other way. I was a small-town boy coming from Mangalore, no one ever played cricket. There are no cricket grounds and no sporting facilities whatsoever. So, coming from there and then went to play from Mangalore to Karnataka to Indian Premier League and further representing India.”

“I've come across different people who've had, that belief and always that support. My parents and my family have played the biggest role. I don't think they had the same belief that I did initially, but later on they saw how hard I was working and, obviously with performances, with people recognizing it, they also started to believe that, okay, maybe, you know, my son, especially, might, he might end up playing for the country. I think my coach from Mangalore always, had that quiet belief. It was never, you know, like too loud or he would run around telling everybody that this boy is going to play for India because I don't think even he believed because it was always, we as, as small-town boys were always made to believe that, you know, it's, it's going to be that much harder.

It's already hard in India, to play for the country. But for someone coming from a small town, it's going to be that much harder because you, the, the opportunities you get are limited and, and all of those things. So, you, somewhere you have that belief, you have that confidence, but there's also a tiny voice in your head that says maybe, you know, there have been people before you who've tried and failed and there've been many and you might just be one, one of them as well.

So that's always there. So I think for my coach also it was a similar sort of thing mentally that he went through, but yeah, I think he made sure that I worked that much harder because he, he's been a coach for a long time. He'd already worked on a few boys who'd made it to the Karnataka team and they didn't make it, further. And so he had that little, fire in him also to get someone, coach someone who's played for India. So, it was his dream. We dreamed of it together. 

KL Rahul shares the support he received from his wife, Athiya Shetty during injury and rehabilitation and her little superstition when he’s batting - “She was with me. She's always been with me through everything. She was more frustrated and angrier most days than I was. So, I found myself, trying to keep her calm than anything else. But it's also the first time that she'd seen me go through something, like this. So, it was tough for both of us, but it also gave us time that we needed together, which was good for us. Things started slowly and I think I need to go back to the same process again.

I feel like the negativity manifested into the injury and in this phase, I just stayed happy and enjoyed the smaller things in life and enjoyed being at home, being with my wife, being with my family that helped me recover so much, so much faster and get back into the game much more happier and much more excited to play the sport that's given me so much joy.”

“She is gonna kill me but I don't really think about her when I step onto the ground.  It's always cricket and I don't mean this in a bad way or in any unromantic way. What she does do for me is, you know, she lets me, she gives me a lot of love and, and there's a lot of peace. So, if I'm peaceful if I'm in a very balanced state of mind, that helps me perform my best, and she knows that. That’s what she does for me in terms of Cricket and professionally and also for me as a person.

I can be a little laid back, and a little too content at times. She does push me, she challenges me to be better or to push my boundaries a little bit, which also I feel with a person like me, is sometimes needed. Off the field, I think she brings a lot of fun to my life. There's a lot of love, obviously and she understands me. She gets me. And she's also someone who, who's busy herself or she's also in the public eye. So she gets the ups and downs of our industry. So it's easy for me to talk to her, to communicate with her and then she's just my person. I mean, she's the one person that I talk to as soon as I finish my games or before I go to a game, before I sleep when I wake up, it's, it's just her. So yeah, married the right person!” 

“I kept telling her that it was special because the World Cup was at home, and you should come and watch the game in the stadiums a lot more. But she doesn't like being in the stadium because she feels the pressure. She feels like you know, she enjoys, she has a lucky spot at home. So, she wants to sit there. You know how, how partners can be. You know, they have their lucky positions, their lucky seat. They want to sit there and watch it and she'll not move when I'm batting. She has certain superstitions that she has her own game that she plays when I'm playing the game. So, yeah, it's very special. And she knows that she can feel it. She can sense it. She's been with me in Australia. When we played, that was special as well. Even though it wasn't a home World Cup, it was, you know, the energy in Australia, the way we played, it was, it was phenomenal. She loved it and she could sense that it's very different from what we play back home or the IPL so yeah, she just started to understand cricket a lot better now.”