'He's got only 24 hours to turn it around': Steyn rates KL Rahul's captaincy after back-to-back defeats in South Africa

It hasn’t been a great start for KL Rahul so far in his tenure as India captain. Captaining the team in the second Test at Johannesburg against South Africa in place of Virat Kohli, Rahul’s India lost at the Wanderers by seven wickets. And now, leading India in the first ODI at Paarl, Rahul’s unit suffered another defeat with hosts South Africa winning the match by 31 runs and taking a 1-0 lead in the series.

Rahul has earlier captained Punjab Kings in the IPL as well but without much success. In two seasons as captain in 2020 and 2021, PBKS endured a woeful run finishing sixth on the points-table on both occasions. So what exactly is ailing Rahul the captain? Well, if the legendary Dale Steyn is to be believed, not much? The former South Africa quick has said he found nothing glaringly wrong in Rahul’s captaincy and if he can get the ‘little bit’ right, things will fall in place for him.

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“If you look at KL, I don’t think he did anything wrong with his captaincy. He had a good day. But there were just those little differences, the little bit of planning that was the difference between India and the Proteas. South Africa were walking up to the bowlers, India stayed in their crease. It’s the little things KL is going to get better at,” Steyn said during the Byju’s Cricket Live Show after the match.

India registered a memorable 5-1 series win the last time they played a bilateral ODI series in South Africa. But this time around, with only three matches to play and India having lost the opener at Boland Park on Wednesday, Steyn reckons Rahul does not have much time to get his act together as captain. 

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“He must understand today was his first game as captain. They haven’t played a lot of white-ball cricket. Some of the guys who have come out haven’t played cricket in a while. Little bit of ring rust. So they are going to get better. But he has got only 24 hours to turn this whole thing around. So today was a good day for them. They must have learnt from South Africa what they did right,” added Steyn.