Rahul flicks switch to finally show the World Cup his full range

The flicked six has a special place in World Cup history. Viv Richards off Mike Hendrick. Yashpal Sharma off Bob Willis.

KL Rahul off Paul van Meekeren probably won't join those two shots in cricketing folklore. It didn't come in a final or semi-final but a dead-rubber league game against one of the weaker attacks of the tournament. And flicked sixes are no longer earth-shattering events. Flicked sixes in 2023 are perhaps as common as sixes of any kind were in the ODIs of 1979 and 1983.

To Rahul, moreover, the flicked six can seem as routine an event as the push down the ground for one. Few send the ball soaring as far as he does while expending as little effort. Where Richards and Yashpal stepped across their stumps to create an angle that would enable them to hit the ball over square leg, Rahul simply stood where he was, cleared his front leg fractionally, and let his wrists - and 21st century bat technology - take over.

It's a shot he's played on countless occasions, particularly in T20 cricket where he's capable of picking up and depositing anything below hip height in the arc between wide long-on and fine leg when he's in the mood.

What was remarkable about this particular shot, then, was that it took until the tournament's final league game for Rahul to unveil it at this World Cup, when he had already scored 297 runs at an average of - at that point - 74.25. Okay, let's not leave room for quibbling here: he did try this shot against South Africa, and was caught on the leg-side boundary for 8.

But the point remains. This shot is one of Rahul's trademarks, along with the late cut and the square drive, and he's shelved it for most of this World Cup.

He played it twice on Sunday, the first off van Meekeren as described above and the second off Bas de Leede to bring up a century off 62 balls. In between, he played a shot that wasn't one of his trademarks, and was therefore a genuine jaw-dropper; a scything slice over backward point off an attempted wide yorker from Logan van Beek, timed so well that it flew for six.

This is a shot only Suryakumar Yadav is known to play on anything like a regular basis. But while you may have been stunned by how sweetly Rahul timed it, you wouldn't have been surprised that he came up with that response to that particular ball. Rahul has as wide a range of shots as anyone in world cricket, and has always been capable of effortlessly executed, off-the-cuff improvisations.

Until Sunday, though, Rahul hadn't really batted in situations at this World Cup that had asked him to play these shots. Most times during India's first eight games, he had either been required to firefight or consolidate - situations that called for pared-down methods of low-risk run-gathering.

Most times he'd done exactly what India had needed from him, but a knock-on effect was that his tournament strike rate, before Sunday, had stood at 79.80. It was the lowest of India's top seven batters, with Virat Kohli a distant second at 88.29. After Sunday's game, Rahul's figure has shot up to 93.53.

Rahul has always been highly versatile, but his versatility has been both a blessing and a curse. He's scored Test hundreds in Australia, England and South Africa, but he averages 33.44 after 44 Tests. He's hit a 14-ball fifty in the IPL, but often faces criticism for slow starts in T20.

ODIs have perhaps offered him a happy middle ground, and it's instructive that he's been at his best in this format when he's batted at Nos. 4 and 5, roles that usually give him a clear idea of when to dip into which part of his skillset. When his versatility has been allied to this sort of clarity, the results have been spectacular. Rahul is one of only four batters to have scored 1000-plus runs in those two positions at a 50-plus average and a 90-plus strike rate.

Only two have achieved this while keeping wickets, and their averages and strike rates are eerily similar, though Rahul has a fair bit of catching up to do with AB de Villiers on the centuries front.

KLR, ABD. It may or may not be appropriate to put the two in the same sentence just yet, but the numbers should tell you just how high Rahul's ceiling is. India are fortunate to have him in their line-up, ready, willing and able whether it's 2 for 3 or 200 for 3.