'From Sitting to Standing: KL Rahul Talks About Dealing with Merciless Social Media Trolling'

New Delhi: KL Rahul, a senior India cricketer, recently addressed the significant amount of online abuse he has received and shared how he has coped with it. Having been a consistent performer since his international debut in 2014, Rahul has been a key player for the Indian team in all formats of the game. He has also taken on the role of captain when Rohit Sharma was unavailable.

However, the flamboyant wicketkeeper has come under a lot of flak of late, more so for his batting style in T20s. He was overlooked in the 2024 T20 World Cup squad also as the team management decided to go back to Rishabh Pant and India played fearlessly to win the tournament.

After the 2022 T20 World Cup, Rahul was criticized for his batting strategy and he was subsequently left out of India’s T20I plans.

Rahul said that he got trolled significantly a couple of years ago and it did affect him, after which he could no longer deal with such criticism as easily as he used to do.

“I used to be good with [handling] trolling. I did not care, but I feel I was much younger back then. And then, a couple of years back, I was exposed to a lot of trolling. If I sat, I got trolled, if I stood, I got trolled,” Rahul said on Nikhil Kamath’s podcast.

“I am done with the trolling now. For the last one and a half years, I have gotten off Instagram completely. I still go, post and do my things and get out of that place as quickly as possible,” he added.

He has shown fair versatility in ODIs and Tests, doing well both as an opener and middle-order batsman. He emerged as the third-highest run-scorer in the recent ODI World Cup with 452 runs from 10 matches at an average of 75.33. But his slow 66 off 107 balls in the final against Australia once again drew criticism.

Also, Rahul has more recently lost some ground in the leadership structure, with young Shubman Gill being elevated to vice-captaincy in ODIs over the seasoned batter.

“I did mischievous things in schools like chota mota (small things), but nothing to get me expelled from school or my parents have had to come. That was my first, and then you realise how bad it is,” he said.