Numbers can be deceptive and not always tell the whole story, feels Indian vice-captain KL Rahul, whose endeavour ahead of the T20 World Cup is to improve his strike-rate in the powerplay overs. Rahul has copped a fair bit of criticism of late for his strike rate and the stylish batter believes that it is difficult to maintain the same tempo throughout an innings.

“It is something that every player works towards [strike-rate]. No one is perfect. Everyone is working towards something,” said Rahul, who batted at a strike-rate of 122.22 during the Asia Cup in UAE. However, Rahul’s career T20I strike-rate is 140 plus across 61 games, but it is primarily because he makes it up during the back-10 of an innings. “Strike-rates are taken on an overall basis,” he said and the gave his rationale behind the argument.