Former Indian cricket team batter Aakash Chopra was in awe of KL Rahul as he guided Delhi Capitals to a comprehensive victory over Royal Challengers Bengaluru in IPL 2025 on Thursday. Rahul slammed an explosive 93 off 53 deliveries to clinch a six-wicket victory for his side with 13 balls remaining. It was a special knock from the batter who was regularly criticised for his strike rate in T20 cricket. However, Chopra made it clear that Rahul was ‘Player of the Match’ and decoded his fiery celebration.

“KL Rahul’s batting. He was the Player of the Match. He made a ground, a circle, and then planted his bat in the middle, and said this is his area and he reigns there. He would have been hurt. Rahul even used to put his fingers in his ears to keep the outside noise out. However, he would have been seeing and hearing everything, enduring and swallowing it,” Aakash Chopra said on YouTube.

Rahul was part of the IPL 2025 mega auction after he was released by Lucknow Super Giants but RCB decided to not bid for their old player. Instead, they went big for Venkatesh Iyer before eventually losing out to Kolkata Knight Riders in the bidding. Chopra said that Rahul’s celebration was a message to RCB management that they were wrong to not go for him and in not valuing his ‘skill set’

“When they won the match, he said – ‘I started here, I was with you, but you let me go. It’s fine if you let me go then, but this time when I came in the auction, you had money as well. You went till ₹23 crore for Venky Iyer and didn’t come to me till ₹12 crore. You don’t value my skill set. So I will take it upon myself to change the game for you,'” he added.