Date of birth
18 April 1992
Age
30
Nationality
India
Career start
2010
Discipline
Cricket
A tall, elegant right-hand batsman who can keep wicket in a crisis, KL Rahul is among the most highly rated opening batsmen in India’s current set-up.
He was a part of India’s squad in the 2010 Under-19 World Cup and made his first-class debut later that year. After finishing as top run getter in Red Bull Campus Cricket 2013, he had a breakthrough domestic season in 2013-14, laying the foundation for Karnataka’s Ranji Trophy victory with 1033 runs, which included three centuries, three nineties, and a Man-of-the-Match performance in the final.
He scored twin centuries in the 2014-15 Duleep Trophy final to earn a place in India’s Test squad on their tour of Australia. He scored his maiden Test century in just his second match. He was then called up to India’s ODI and T20I squads for the tour of Zimbabwe in June 2016. He became the first Indian to score a century on his ODI debut. He scored his first T20I ton in August 2016 against West Indies to break the record for fastest centuries in all three formats of the game having done so in just 20 innings.
He had successful league stints at Bangalore and Hyderabad before he joined Kings XI Punjab in 2018. In his first match for the team, he broke the league record for fastest half century by bringing up his 50 in just 14 balls.
Through 2019 and 2020, he achieved several milestones including his first league century (April 2019), first World Cup century (July 2020), his 1000th T20I run (December 2019), his 1000th ODI run (January 2020), and his 4000th T20 run overall (January 2020). In February 2020, he was second in the ICC rankings for T20I batsmen.
In the 2020 season, he captained Kings XI Punjab in the league.
18 April 1992
30
India
2010
Cricket