5 players from the KPL who made it to different IPL teams

#5 KL Rahul

KL Rahul has become a permanent member of India’s Test squad since his debut in 2014-15

KL Rahul can probably be judged as the cricketer who made the most of his KPL career, for his story pre-KPL and that post KPL is akin to a rags to riches story. While he had an ordinary run in the KPL during the first two seasons (2009 and 2010), managing just 141 runs from 11 matches cumulatively. However, a terrific Ranji season in 2013 propelled the top-order batsman towards the IPL ranks and he played 5 games for the Royal Challengers in 2013.

Perhaps it was that confidence that led him to the top of the run-scorers’ charts when the KPL returned to life in 2014, as he plundered 347 runs from 6 games, playing for the Hubbali Tigers at an average of 69.40 and a strike-rate of 160. Towards the end of the same year, Rahul received his maiden Team India call-up, for the tour of Australia in 2014-15, and played two Test matches – at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) and the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG). The Karnataka batsman scored his maiden Test century at the SCG, and since then, has been a permanent member of India’s Test squad.

Also, over the past couple of years or so, Rahul, who was only known as a technically sound Test batsman, has reinvented his game and has adapted brilliantly to the rigours of limited-overs cricket as well, the evidence of which have been his recent exploits during the limited-overs tour of Zimbabwe, wherein he became the first Indian batsman to score a century on ODI debut. In IPL 2016, playing for the RCB, Rahul scored 397 runs from 14 games and played a crucial role in the team’s ascendance to the finals of the league.