What is Fantasy Cricket?
Cricket has been a widely followed sport all over the world for a very long time now and the craze among the fans has never been higher than now. The sports world has come up with many online games, thanks to the technological advancements and one such game that has taken over the internet today is Fantasy Sports that includes many genres such as Fantasy Football, Fantasy Basketball, etc. One such genre that is growing fastly on the internet among cricket fans is Fantasy Cricket.
How to Play Fantasy Cricket?
The participants are supposed to create their own cricket team by acting as the manager and also at the same time, the owner of the team. Every player has a price tag and every manager has a certain expenditure limit from which they have to build the entire squad for the rest of the season.
The key part of fantasy cricket is how smartly you can choose the team. You have to basically select a squad of 11 players from both the teams. Most of the time, all rounders and wicket keepers are on everyone’s priority list as they are most likely to earn the most points. Managers have to keep in mind the performance, form, availability and ability of players before selecting the team because they can not change after the match has started. Users can also earn money through fantasy cricket. So sign up now for the ultimate fun and experience not only as a cricket fan but also as a manager/coach and owner of your own team!
Who is KL Rahul?
KL Rahul is an international cricket player who plays for the Indian National Cricket Team in the ICC Tournaments. The star from Karnataka plays as a right handed batsman and a wicket keeper. KL Rahul in IPL (Indian Premier League) plays for the Kings XI Punjab. He plays as the opening batsman for both, the Indian National Cricket Team for international cricket and Kings XI Punjab where he is also the ipl captain of the team.
After a successful domestic first class cricket career with Karnataka, a decent performance in the Under 19 ICC Cricket World Cup in 2010 (held in New Zealand) and an excellent run in the 2013 IPL season, Rahul made his international cricket debut for the Indian National Cricket Team in 2014 and become only the second cricket player ever to play for the Indian National Cricket team from Mangalore after Budhi Kunderan.
He played his first international Test cricket match against the Australian National Cricket Team replacing an injured Rohit Sharma and made his ODI Cricket (One Day International) debut in 2016 against the Zimbabwe International Cricket Team. A week after making his One Day International Cricket debut against Zimbabwe, he played his first match of his T20 career against Zimbabwe.
Since making his debut in all formats for the Indian Cricket Team, Rahul has played in 36 test matches, 32 one day internationals and 42 T20 career matches. He has scored 11 international cricket centuries, 5 in Test, 4 in ODI and 2 in T20. His maiden century came at the second Test match in Sydney against the Australian Cricket team in 2014 and he also scored a century on his ODI debut against Zimbabwe in 2016, which also made him the first Indian Cricketer to do so. He is also one of the three Indian Cricket players ever to score a century in all formats of international cricket.
Early Life and Domestic Cricket Career
Born in a highly educated family from Mangalore, KL Rahul was supposed to be named after the son of Sunil Gavaskar (whose name is actually Rohan Gavaskar but was mistaken for Rahul by Rahul’s father) as Rahul’s father, a professor and former director at the National Institute of Technology Karnataka (NITK), was a huge fan of cricket and Gavaskar. Rahul’s mother is also a professor and she teaches at Mangalore University. Rahul started his cricket training at the age of 10 and continued his high school at NITK English Medium School where he won various accolades for his school cricket team. Rahul was already playing for both Bangalore United Cricket Club and his club in Mangalore. He continued his training in pre-university at St. Aloysius College before moving to Bangalore at the age 18 to study at Jain University and at the same time, pursue his cricket career.
The Young Talent
As Rahul grew up, he idolized many legendary cricket players such as Rahul Dravid (another legendary batsman from Karnataka), AB De Viliers and Virat Kohli. Not only did he idolize cricket players but also great athletes from different sports from all over the world such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic and David Beckham from Football, Roger Federer from Tennis and Usain Bolt, a sprinter.
Rahul made his first class cricket debut for Karnataka in the 2010 and 11 season. In that season he also played for the Indian Cricket Team at the 2010 ICC Under 19 Cricket World Cup, scoring a total of 143 runs in the competition. KL Rahul in IPL (Indian Premier League) made his debut for the Royal Challengers Bangalore back in 2013 under the leadership of Daniel Vettori. During the 2013 and 14 domestic season he scored 1,033 first-class runs, the second highest scorer that season.
The turning point of his domestic cricket career was when he scored 185 off 233 balls in the first innings and 130 off 152 in the second, playing for South Zone in the final of the 2014 and 15 Duleep Trophy against Central Zone,. He was also awarded the man of the match and selection to the Indian Test squad for the upcoming Australian tour.
Returning home after the Test series, KL Rahul became Karnataka’s first triple-centurion, scoring 337 against Uttar Pradesh. He continued the crazy form with a staggering score of 188 in the 2014 and 15 Ranji Trophy final against Tamil Nadu and finished the season with an average of 93.11 in the nine matches he played.
Playing for the Indian National Cricket Team
Selection for the Men in Blue
After an excellent stint in first class cricket, the Under 19 Cricket World Cup, Ranji Trophy (in which he set several records) and the Indian Premier League (IPL), Rahul’s name and reputation was constantly growing in the cricketing world and it seemed as if it was about time he got a chance to play for the Rahul was finally called up by the senior team for his International Cricket debut in the Test series against the Australian Cricket Team in 2014.
The Long Awaited Debut
He played his first match on the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground when he replaced the injured Rohit Sharma under the leadership of then Indian Test Team captain MS Dhoni. After coming in at number 6, scoring 3 runs and coming in at number 3, scoring 1 run in the first two innings respectively, there was a lot of criticism faced by the youngster, however, Rahul managed to keep his place secure in the team for the next test match at Sydney where he was the opener alongside Murali Vijay and scored a hammering 110 runs, his maiden test and international cricket century.
Rise to Success
He was selected to play for the Indian Cricket Team for the four tests tour against West Indies in 2016 and played in the second Test at Jamaica and scored 158 in a wonderful innings, his highest Test score then. During that, he also became the first Indian opener to score a century in a debut Test against the West Indies. In the first match of the T20I series in the United States, he scored a century off 46 balls in a match that Team India lost but on the brighter side, it was the second-fastest ever and fastest by an Indian. He also set the world record for being the only player to score a hundred in the first innings as an opener in both Test Cricket and ODI Cricket.
Rahul made history after setting the record for the fastest batsman to have scored centuries in all three major formats of cricket in just 20 innings and hence overtaking the record of Ahmed Shehzad who took 76 innings to do so. He is also the first player in the history of T20I to have scored a century when batting at number 4 or lower. Rahul scored his second T20 career century against England in what was a hammering performance on 3 July 2018.
Off-Pitch Controversy
KL Rahul was suspended by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) following controversial comments he made on the Indian talk show Koffee with Karan earlier in the month. He was sent home along with Hardik Pandya who also made a few controversial comments ahead of the ODI Cricket series against Australia and the fixtures of India’s tour to New Zealand. After lifting the ban on Hardik and Rahu on 24 January 2019, the BCCI announced that Rahul would reunite with the squad for India A matches. Rahul made sure the ban, controversies and criticisms did not affect his performance and focus on Cricket as he went on to represent India in the ICC tournaments including the Cricket World Cup.
2019 ICC Cricket World Cup
Rahul’s dream finally came true in April 2019, when he was named in India’s squad for the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup. He scored his maiden hundred for India in the World Cup against Sri Lanka in what was a tremendous performance not only by Rahul and Rohit Sharma but also by the entire team. However, after a disappointing or rather an unlucky performance (since India’s innings was delayed many times because of rain) against New Zealand in the semi final, India, even though the favourites, got knocked out of the world cup.
Indian Premier League
Draft and Debut
On the back of his performances in the Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament in 2013, KL Rahul was drafted into the Royal Challengers Bangalore set-up, a line-up which boasted the names of legendary batsmen such as Virat Kohli, the skipper from South Africa, AB de Villiers and the skipper from West Indies, Chris Gayle. He made his debut in the IPL with RCB as a wicket keeper batsman but hardly got a lot of chances to prove himself in the format.
Trade to SHR and return to RCB
The next year, in 2014, he was picked by the Sunrisers Hyderabad for Rs. 1 crore, where he got more way more chances to bat in the top/middle order and prove himself in the format. He came back to the Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2016 and proved his mettle in that edition of the IPL. He made 397 runs in 14 matches and ended the tournament as the third highest run getter in the club.
Move to KXIP and Captaincy
Strangely, he wasn’t kept by RCB and Kings XI Punjab took advantage of that in the 2018 IPL auctions. Rahul was bought for Rs. 11 crore, which in fact, turned out to be the third highest price for that IPL season. Rahul then proved his value by scoring 659 runs (average: 54.91, strike-rate: 158.41), batting at the top of the order. He also struck six fifties in 14 matches, out of which three were over the score of 90. Rahul also holds the record for the fastest fifty in the history of IPL (off just 14 balls). For the tremendous performances he put up in the 2019 IPL season, he was also named in the Cricinfo IPL XI consisting of the best players from the 2019 IPL season.
Following the departure of the former ipl captain Ravichandran Ashwin, as he got traded to the Delhi Capitals, it was decided by the board and management that KL Rahul would take over the captaincy of the Kings XI Punjab in the 2020 IPL season. This will probably give Rahul huge responsibilities and he will have a chance to showcase his leadership qualities which might be a key factor in the selection of Indian Cricket Team’s next captain once Virat Kohli retires.
