How Abhishek Nayar helped KL Rahul rediscover the music

KL Rahul has flummoxed not just observers on the outside but those within the India team as well.

Former captain Rohit Sharma wanted to get the best out of Rahul, and entrusted the job to Abhishek Nayar, one of the assistant coaches with the national side when Gautam Gambhir took over as head coach.

"When I first picked up that role, I remember I had a conversation with Rohit, and he said that one of the things he was really keen on me doing was working with KL and bringing out a more aggressive outlook to how KL played the game, and bringing the best out of him. Because he believed strongly that KL would play a major role in the Champions Trophy, World Cup and everything going forward including the BGT [Border-Gavaskar Trophy] and the Tests in England," Nayar, who was removed from the position after a BCCI review following the 3-1 series loss in Australia, tells ESPNcricinfo.

As luck would have it, Rahul started the BGT almost on notice. At the start of the home series against New Zealand that preceded the Australia tour, Rahul was out tickling one down the leg side in the first innings, on a rare green seamer in Bengaluru. Then he saw Sarfaraz Khan and Rishabh Pant bat aggressively in the second innings, before he himself got out to a peach with the second new ball as India collapsed. He didn't play the next two Tests.

"I think that was sort of the inception [of our relationship]," Nayar says. "Australia was going to be critical for him because it was almost like what if you didn't get runs there, then where is his career going? Because he was out of the T20 [squad]. Then this could also very well have been his last series.

"I told him, 'listen, we've got 15 days to prepare before we go to Australia, and take those ten days there, we have got almost month to prepare - what do you want to do? How do you want to approach this? What is your mindset?'

"He spoke about what he's been doing and what worked for him in the past. And then I had a certain thought process, which was very different from his. Over hours and hours of conversation and trying to make him understand where I came from, eventually I got him to a place where he sort of trusted me to do certain things with him in regards to how he practises, in regards to trusting certain changes in his tactics, in regards to his stance, where he stands in the crease, what guard he takes."

Rahul and Nayar began to prepare for the Australia tour even as the New Zealand series was on. They would go to the nets before the start of a day's play and would stay back after it did. With Rohit away on paternity leave at the start of the Australia tour, Rahul, who had batted in the middle order through most of 2024, had the chance to return to his familiar role of opening the batting in Perth.

"A coach has to be lucky," Nayar says. "How lucky that in his first game in Australia he got runs in the second innings and in the first also he got a start. That gave him a bit of believability. There are times when the glue just sticks. That was the moment the glue stuck. He really enjoyed that knock. He told me, listen, I feel like I am just watching and playing. It's music to me now, playing the sport."

What was the enigma, though? Why could India never consistently get the best out of Rahul? Why had he been, at least in Tests, a player of great innings rather than a great player?

"There is outside noise, there are expectations that one has from oneself, expectations that somehow over the years people and yourself, you infuse into your mind," Nayar says. "So you start thinking this is what you need to do, and this is what you need to achieve, and people keep talking about your potential and your talent, and you keep adding more pressure saying that because everyone thinks I'm talented and because I have the potential, I need to live up to it, and those expectations sometimes weigh on you your shoulders, and those expectations sometimes really pull you down in a lot of ways and don't let you be you. That was something that I think was one of those things that was holding him back.

"It takes the fun out of the game. This doesn't let you play the kind of cricket you want to play, and more than anything it kills your instinct completely. So it makes you a very predetermined player, devoid of natural flow."

Nayar won't give out the "secret sauce", the changes he and Rahul made to how he trains. "All I can tell you is, the way I've always tried to handle things is to first try and address the skill, and then use skill as a medium to address the mind," Nayar says. "That's as much as I can tell you in terms of details. It's about using practice to give his mind reassurance with the plan that we have, and what he needs to do to execute it. And then adding a lot of tactical nuances to that so that it gives him a slight edge when he's batting. So his focus is totally on following and executing those tactical adjustments and nuances rather than focusing on the result of it."

While happy with the way he was batting, Rahul still didn't deliver that breakout series in Australia. His highest series aggregate remains 393, which he made at home against Australia in 2016-17. Rahul followed up the Perth show with an 84 at the Gabba but returned from the tour with no century. "I remember we met someone, and he jokingly said, coach, you need to teach me how to score hundreds," Nayar says. "And we were laughing in banter. I was like, dude, sometimes hundreds are just luck.

"I have this belief system that if it's meant to be, it will be. If it's not, it's just not the time. I always believed that he was doing all the right things, and it was just not converting. The pitches in that series, bar MCG, had a lot of grass. I remember telling him you need to understand this part of the sport as well. We want to score hundreds, we want to do things, but sometimes when you score 270 in a series, you need to be happy about it. And not think about what if I scored 350 or what if I scored 400.

"I'm not saying be satisfied, but you also have to acknowledge the fact that you were not part of the Test team very recently, and you come to Australia back in a position that that you weren't batting in, and you still managed to hold onto that position at end of it. So it just says that you know you accomplished something, we achieved something, now it's taking the next step to achieve something more. Sometimes you need to wait, you need to be patient for good things to happen. Sometimes players forget that that good thing is just around the corner. If you can just hold on a little longer, just be a little more grateful for what you have, good things will happen. Just one of those very philosophical conversations."

While Rahul was out of the T20I set-up and working on rebuilding his Test career, the one constant was ODIs, where he brought a rare mix of serviceable wicketkeeping and a calm, experienced head in the middle order, the toughest place to bat in limited-overs cricket. However, Nayar saw an improvement even there. He points to the six he hit off Mitchell Santner in a tense Champions Trophy final, off the eighth ball of his innings and against the opposition's best bowler for those conditions.

"Watching the game as part of the support staff, I remember watching him and saying damn, this is really working. Because that start was very against his nature. It was not a shot that he would play when batting on [3]. That's a shot he would play when he was batting 35 or 40. That is a small moment in my head when I said, damn, we are thinking right, he's moving in the right direction."

What allowed Rahul to play that shot at that moment?

"If someone gets out playing a reverse-sweep, it is a bad shot," Nayar says. "If someone gets out defending, it's a good ball. But it doesn't matter in the score book. It's still out. So my coaching outlook is not so much what shot he played or what he should have done this ball. That's not how I think. I have always wanted players to think that if this is the right shot to play, you play it. It doesn't matter whether it's going to look bad.

"If someone is coming in and bowling hard length, and if we have practised enough to open the front leg and hit the ball over covers, you do it. The world may perceive it however they want to, but they don't know the journey, they don't know the plan, they don't know what you have prepared for. As long as we know what we're doing, and we have prepared for it and not just talked about it in the room, I am okay with it and you should be okay with it.

"There is no right time to play a shot. There is a shot, you play it. Now the backstory of the shot, no one knows. That only you and me know so let's not expect others to understand it. No one knows the work you are putting in. No one knows the hours of planning that go into understanding why I'm going to play the shot or why I am doing this, that's for us to understand. We have to be okay with the fact that if it doesn't work out, people are going to criticise, people are going to ask questions, people are going to point fingers. That's the world. It is fine.

"That's where the freedom comes from. All these I don't believe in: stop thinking too much, no pressure, just watch the ball, play with freedom. I always think how can you go have fun. For me it is more about problem-solving, about how you can watch the ball without thinking too much, how you can go and play in a pressure situation but look like there is no pressure, how you can accept that responsibility as a cricketer but still figure out a way to overcome it by looking responsible but being irresponsible."

Even though the BCCI let go of Nayar just before the IPL, Rahul stuck with him in personal capacity. During the IPL, Rahul showed he was no longer the man who believed strike-rates were overrated. He gave a "big shoutout to Abhishek Nayar", with whom he had spent "hours and hours in Bombay".

Rahul is enjoying his cricket much more now. He has started this England tour with a bang even though India ended up losing the first Test. As a senior batter, Rahul will have to lead the charge in lifting the other batters to once more put India in positions from where they can dominate. In the process, if he can give himself a 400-plus or 500-plus series, he will have done his bit.