India’s right-handed batter KL Rahul made shocking revelations regarding his retirement plans, months after celebrating his 32nd birthday.
The right-handed batter revealed that he suffered from anxiety upon realizing that he did not have much time left to keep on playing international cricket.
He, however, claimed that he was not insecure about bidding adieu to international cricket.
“There is no insecurity, but there is a feeling that all this ends, and for me it ends very quickly. If you are fit enough, you can play till 40. That is the maximum someone has played. Yes, there is MS Dhoni, who is 43 and is still playing. You can play the IPL and all of that, but not at the international level for too long,” said KL Rahul during a podcast with an Indian YouTuber.
“For me, the anxiety was when I hit 30. I could see the end of the tunnel. Till I was 29, I could not see that. Some weird thing happened on my 30th birthday. I could see I have 10 more years to play cricket, and that gave me anxiety, and that is the first time I felt like ‘This comes to an end at some point.’ All I have done all my life is ‘Cricket, Cricket, Cricket,’ without imagining this comes to an end. Now I can see it. It is not too far away,” he added.
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KL Rahul then stressed the shorter shelf life of the cricketers, asserting that they have to make the most out of the opportunities they get in their careers.
“There is a fear and realisation that the shelf life is really small for an athlete, and you need to make the most of it within whatever time you have,” said Rahul.
KL Rahul, who made his international debut for India in 2014, has emerged an integral part of his country’s ODI and Test sides.
The right-handed batter has scored almost 8,000 runs across formats with the help of 17 centuries and 54 half-centuries in 199 innings.