Working on improving my strike rate in Powerplay, says KL Rahul ahead of Australia T20Is

As he gets ready for the T20I series against Australia, India opener KL Rahul is facing questions over his strike rate during the Powerplay.

Rahul, who has recently returned from an injury and played his first series against Zimbabwe last month, says it is something he is working at.

"It's obviously something that every player works towards. Nobody is perfect, nobody in that dressing room is perfect," Rahul said in the pre-match press conference on Monday.

He said the issue of strike rate should be taken in the context of its overall impact on the result and the role assigned to the player in the team.

"Everybody has a certain role to do and obviously strike rates are taken for the overall basis. You never see when that batsman has played at a certain strike rate whether it was important for him to play at 200 or whether the team could have still won when playing at 100-120 strike rate. These are things that not everybody analyses so when you look at it, it looks slow.

"Yes, it is something I am working at. The roles have been defined for each individual in the last 10-12 months, each player is clear about what is expected from him and everybody is working towards it," said Rahul, who has a career T20I strike rate of 140-plus across 61 games. Though he starts at a slower rate, Rahul makes it up during the later part of his innings.

"I am just working towards how I can better myself as an opening batter," the India vice-captain said ahead of the first T20I against Australia here on Tuesday.

The stylish batter from Karnataka, who made a comeback with the ODIs in Zimbabwe, said he is feeling good about his game and looking forward to the Australia T20Is.

"I am feeling good about my game. Getting some game after the injury was very important. Going to Zimbabwe was very crucial. It will be fun to play at home, It has been a while for me," he said.

"Team environment has allowed players to learn from their mistakes"

Rahul is happy to be a part of a dressing room that allows players to learn from their mistakes.

"The most important thing for the player in the room is what captain and coach and teammates think of him and we know what is expected out of each person. everyone is trying to give best not every time a player will succeed.

"We have created an environment where players are not afraid to fail or not afraid to make mistakes. Even if mistakes happen this is what we do. We work the hardest for this."

Criticism will be there but what this Indian team believes is self criticism.

"Criticism everyone does but we criticise ourselves the most. We are playing for the country and when we don't do well it hurts us the most," he said.

Different mistakes happened at different events

India will be looking to finalise their combinations for the T20 World Cup in the six home games against Australia and South Africa. Rahul said the team is yet to play to its full potential.

"Skill wise our performance was only 80-85 percent. We are still not very good in terms of batting or excellent in bowling or fielding. There are a few things we need to fix.

"You can only win big events if all these are done well and the team comes together to win championship."

At last year's T20 World Cup and this year's Asia Cup, the mistakes committed were different.

"What happened in Asia Cup and 2021 World Cup (both early exit), we made (committed) different mistakes in those two events. We are very clear about what went wrong and we are trying to learn from it," he said.