Sanjay Manjrekar’s cruel ‘death warrant’ comment on KL Rahul breaks the internet

Former India batsman Sanjay Manjrekar criticized Delhi Capitals’ KL Rahul for his poor batting in his team’s defeat against Chennai Super Kings on Tuesday, May 5.

Even though Delhi had won the toss and elected to bat first, Rahul and his opening partner Pathum Nissanka were nowhere close to their aggressive best, and DC ultimately had to pay the price. Manjrekar criticized Rahul for scoring only 12 runs in 13 balls.

DC lost to CSK on home ground

Even though the game was actually in Delhi, the way Akeal Hosein and Noor Ahmed moved the ball, it could have been mistaken for Chepauk. Twice in the two home matches, Delhi failed to get starts in the power play and lost a lot of wickets at the top.

Their score was 69/5 in the eleventh over and they had to bring in Sameer Rizvi to save them from the collapse. Rizvi did his job, mostly by scoring an unbeaten 40 which took DC to a fighting 156. In reply, Sanju Samson wasted his time and waited for the right moment to attack. His unbeaten 87 and Karthik Sharma’s unbeaten 41 ensured CSK’s eight-wicket win.

You have basically signed a death warrant for your team- Sanjay Manjrekar criticizes KL Rahul

In a video posted on his official Instagram page, Manjrekar talked about Delhi Capitals’ poor performance not just in this match but the entire season.

“It’s almost like an odd-even game, where sometimes he goes straight in to bowl, which is the KL Rahul you want. But then he feels he has earned the right, and he feels responsible for the rest of the batsmen coming in, and then plays the same kind of innings. Once you get out for 12 off 12, you sign a death warrant for your team. Once they have The first six overs were bad, so DC were ready to play.”

You can’t start slow and expect to explode later – Sanjay Manjrekar

Manjrekar also criticized KL Rahul’s approach of starting slow in the hope that the opportunity to explode would come later. He said that in an era where a strike rate of 200 in the power play was normal for an opener, Rahul was stuck at half of that and it was not helping anyone.

He said, “After playing a brilliant innings in the last match, KL Rahul scored 12 runs in 12 balls in the first six overs. That means two overs running at a strike rate of 100. When you have an opener running at a strike rate of 200, you cannot score 12 runs in 12 balls in the hope that he will explode later.”

In the same video, Manjrekar repeatedly criticized DC captain Axar Patel’s decision to promote himself up the batting order, saying that players like David Miller, Ashutosh Sharma and Sameer Rizvi should not bat after Patel.

KL Rahul’s form in IPL 2026

Although Rahul had a bad night against CSK, his overall figures in this year’s IPL are still good. He is currently the Orange Cap holder but may soon lose it as the second position is just five runs behind.

Overall, Rahul has 445 runs in 10 matches at an average of 49.44 and strike rate of 180.89, which includes 1 century and 3 fifties.

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