Tom Moody Strongly Defends KL Rahul Amid Criticism: ‘A lot better player than…’

Former Australian cricketer Tom Moody has come to KL Rahul’s defence, saying he is a better player than people give him credit for. He feels that the criticism he receives is unusual and undeserved.

Indian batter KL Rahul has often faced criticism over his strike rate in T20 cricket. It was a point of discussion again during his 112 off 65 balls innings in a losing cause against GT.

‘I always find the criticism around KL Rahul quite extraordinary’

Rahul hit his century in 60 balls, and his strike rate was 172.30. In IPL 2025, his strike rate is 148.04, amassing 493 runs in 12 innings. In terms of his strike rate, he hasn’t done better since IPL 2018, when he went at 158.41 in scoring 659 in 14 matches.

“I always find the criticism around KL Rahul quite extraordinary,” Moody said on ESPNcricinfo’s Time Out. “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.”

“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 Defends KL Rahul

Between the 15th and 18th overs, Rahul only faced 6 balls, which Moody felt might have disturbed his momentum.

“The team had the opportunity to get it to 220. The team didn’t do that,” Moody said. “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.”

“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.”

Stay updated with all the cricketing action, follow Cricadium on WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, and Instagram