KL Rahul

However, the 'review', coming after eight losses in eight games, might not be enough to revive the fortunes of the five-time champions, who are now staring at an early exit from the tournament after failing to open their account on the points table.

Rahul, who had scored his first century of IPL 2022 against Mumbai Indians in his 100th match a few days ago, played a well-controlled innings on a sluggish track to finish with an unbeaten 103 off 62 deliveries. He reached the three-figure mark off 61 balls in the final over of the innings, hitting 12 fours and four sixes. Rahul (103) waged a lone battle, struggling for help from the other end as the other batters came in and went out in a procession. Manish Pandey was the second highest scorer.

Star Indian opener KL Rahul has dissected the captaincy styles of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma while highlighting how he has evolved as player whistle playing under the Indian skippers. Rahul also mentioned former India skipper MS Dhoni's cool and composed nature and said that for being a good leader, one needs to have qualities of all these (Dhoni, Kohli, and Rohit) players.

"Deepak gave us a real chance. Quite an exciting game, disappointing that we ended up on the losing side. It's quite obvious where we've gone wrong and it's for everyone to see, our shot selection has been really poor as batsmen. Even as bowlers we weren't hitting the good areas consistently. We didn't pressure the opposition for long periods so we ended up losing the series," a dejected-looking KL Rahul said after the match.

KL Rahul-led side lost the first ODI by 31 runs while they suffered a seven-wicket defeat in the second match of the three-match series on Friday. Having learned the lessons from the hosts' batting, India will have to alter their plans to find solutions to their middle-over woes. The batting lost its way in the middle overs in both matches despite promising starts and there could be potential changes to the Indian playing XI.

"It was a nice game. There's so much to learn. We started off really well, we couldn't get wickets in the middle. We'll look to see how we get wickets in the middle overs and stop the opposition. The middle-order couldn't get going. We were on par for the first 20-25 overs of the game. I thought we would chase it down easily but SA bowled really well and got crucial wickets," Rahul said at the post-match presentation ceremony.

India are playing an ODI series after a long time and they are in search of a strong playing XI and correct team balance. The opener, who is now part of the leadership group, feels the multiple ODI series this year will give the team a chance to experiment. "This year we will be playing a few one-day series, which will give us a chance to try out new things. We've all sat down as a team and had an honest talk about the things we need to improve and the things that we need to get better at.

KL Rahul on Thursday said that 2021 will go down as one of the great years in the history of Indian cricket, especially with regards to Test format. He added that his 123 against South Africa in the first Test here is right up there for him alongside his other overseas hundreds.

Rohit was named India's limited-overs captain ahead of the start of the South Africa tour earlier this month. He was also appointed vice-captain of the Test side. However, he got injured (hamstring injury) during the training session in Mumbai and was later ruled out of the Test series against Proteas.

"I think the highlight for us as a team is Rahul getting a big hundred. But the crucial point for us is getting partnerships. We got good partnerships, first up. Then, with Virat and KL and then Ajinkya and KL, I hope they can continue the same. Knitting partnerships and making them bigger and bigger is the key, is also the highlight for us as a team today," said Agarwal in the virtual press conference.