‘If you fumble a ball…’: KL Rahul opens up about comparisons with MS Dhoni

The last few limited overs series before the Coronavirus pandemic saw the Indian cricket team try out KL Rahul as the wicket-keeper and that posed a major question mark on the futures of Rishabh Pant and veteran MS Dhoni. Rahul was quite impressive with the bat against West Indies and Australia and he also provided a number of good knocks in the matches against New Zealand. In a recent interview, Rahul said that he is willing to take up the role of wicket-keeper if the team needs him to but added that the boots of Dhoni are big to fill at the moment.

“People who follow cricket know that I haven’t been away from wicket-keeping for too long as I donned the gloves in the IPL and every time I played for Karnataka. I am always in touch with wicket-keeping. I am also somebody who is more than willing to take up the role if the team needs me to,” Rahul said on Star Sports show Cricket Connected.

READ: ‘Dhoni’s graph went up & mine went down, but friendship is intact’

“I was nervous when I was doing it for India because of the crowd pressure. If you fumble a ball, people feel that you cannot replace MS Dhoni. The pressure of replacing a legendary wicket-keeper like MSD was immense as it involved people accepting someone else behind the stumps,” he added.

Earlier, Rahul raised almost Rs 8 lakh by auctioning his signed 2019 World Cup cricket kit to help the vulnerable children. On his 28th birthday, Rahul donated his personal cricketing equipment to the Bharat Army which auctioned the accessories to raise funds. The right-handed batsman’s bat fetched the most money as it was sold for Rs 2,64,228.

Among the other equipment, Rahul’s helmet fetched Rs 1,22,677, his pads garnered Rs 33,028, his ODI jersey for Rs 1,13,240, his T20 jersey for Rs 1,04,824, his Test jersey for Rs 1,32,774 and his gloves for Rs 28,782.

(With agency inputs)