IPL 2025: 'Emotional' KL Rahul leaves 'home' fans & RCB in awe of him in Chinnaswamy homecoming

New Delhi, April 11 (IANS) The fervent crowd at Bengaluru’s M. Chinnaswamy Stadium is usually a massive home advantage for the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) during the IPL. But on Thursday night, to hear the fans chant for an opposing player at RCB home turf in the IPL was quite telling.

The big reason fans draped in RCB colours did that in the stadium was their local lad, aka ‘namma huduga’ (own boy in Kannada) KL Rahul, who owned the stage on his homecoming by hitting a match-winning 93 not out off 53 balls and maintaining Delhi Capitals’ unbeaten run in IPL 2025.

It was a knock where Rahul had to grind it out on a sluggish black-soil pitch, before flicking a switch from the 12th over and accelerating stunningly to take DC home with 13 balls to spare. Following his winning shot - a six over the long-leg boundary off Yash Dayal’s full toss - Rahul proudly thumped his chest, as the crowd cheered loudly and some stood up to show respect for the local hero who secured the victory, albeit for DC.

If that wasn’t enough, Rahul walked to the adjoining pitch, drew a circle there with his bat and put it down fiercely in the middle, mirroring an iconic scene one of his favourite movies Kantara. Just after that mic drop moment, Rahul embraced Tristan Stubbs and said, ‘This is my ground’.

As he walked off the field, Rahul said the same thing to his DC team-mates. It would again echo from Rahul’s mouth in one of the franchise’s Instagram reels posted on Friday, where he explained the inspiration behind his emotionally strong celebration. “So ya, just a tiny reminder that this ground, this home, this turf is where I have grown up and this is mine.”

One would feel that it’s a classic case of "you can take the boy out of the city, but you can’t take the city out of the boy," as evidenced by Rahul’s unbeaten 93 and clear fondness for Chinnaswamy Stadium. However, according to trusted insiders who understand the full picture, the situation is quite different.

In July 2024, sources had told IANS that after a not-so-memorable time with Lucknow Super Giants in the season both on and off the field, the talk was that RCB was very interested in having Rahul on board via the auction route. The think-tank had its reasons: to have a local face in Rahul and entrust him with the leadership mantle.

Later, when Rahul decided against being retained by LSG and went into the auction pool, people in the RCB think-tank had told the wicketkeeper-batter that the franchise would go all out for him in the auction in Jeddah.

The RCB management had relayed the same message to him even a day before the auction happened, shortly after Rahul had said in an interview with Star Sports in November 2024 that it would be a very sweet feeling to be back in the RCB fold.

It’s a known fact that at RCB, Rahul shined as an attacking middle-order batter who absorbed pressure very well in the side’s run as runners-up in IPL 2016 and would open his gates to the India T20I team. Hence, it was understandably evident that RCB was going all out for Rahul in last year’s auction, and facing off against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) for acquiring his services.

But at Rs 10.75 crore mark, RCB dropped out, leaving KKR front-runners, before DC came in to acquire Rahul for INR 14 crore. Hence, when Rahul dished out one impressive shot after the other at Bengaluru, it had two goals: to shine at his home ground and to make a statement against the team that was to take him in the auction but ultimately refrained from doing so.

Fittingly, Rahul had the last laugh on his home turf, where people applauded him for a change instead of doing that for RCB. One would expect Rahul to be charged up yet again when DC meets RCB at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on April 27, and who knows, his animated celebrations, provided the Axar Patel-led side wins, might even evoke memories of that electric Thursday night at Chinnaswamy Stadium.

--IANS

nr/bc