KL Rahul celebrated his 32nd birthday on Friday, April 18. Rahul and his wife, Athiya Shetty, took the occasion to announce the name of their child as well – Evaarah Vipula Rahul. The Delhi Capitals’ batter, once a shy character who offered very few words in both his failure and success, is now a protector, someone who is directly responsible for a life.
KL Rahul took a short leave in the first week of the Indian Premier League’s 2025 season due to the birth of his child. When Rahul returned, he returned with a very different aura than what people associated him with. Long hair, aggressive shots, and wild celebrations – KL was a different man. Now, we do not know if it was fatherhood that changed him, but the KL Rahul of April 2024 and the KL Rahul of April 2025 – they are not the same people.
And that transformation was needed. In 2024, when the IPL was seeing massive totals above 250 in several games, KL Rahul was busy defending his batting approach. His famous line, “Strike rate is overrated,” saw him getting trolled on social media, and eventually his way of playing the game saw him being dropped from India’s T20 World Cup 2024 side and later from his franchise, Lucknow Super Giants.
That drop would have certainly hurt KL Rahul. From one of the starters in the Indian team in at least 2 out of 3 formats of the game – someone who was seen as one of the leaders in the national side – was suddenly nowhere. And his legacy? A villain in the 2023 World Cup Final, banished from the T20I side, he remained a Test specialist, someone that India could bank upon in all conditions across the world.
A few months later, even that was threatened. A horrible series loss at home against New Zealand saw KL Rahul get dropped from the Test side as well. That decision from Gautam Gambhir and co. came under the scanner as people did not like Rahul being scapegoated by the team again and again.
But Rahul did not utter a word.