Suspension was wake-up call for me: KL Rahul sheds light on ban after controversial Koffee with Karan episode

KL Rahul and Hardik Pandya faced each other in the Indian Premier League on Monday where the former’s Lucknow Super Giants fell to the latter’s Gujarat Titans 5 wickets. Both the players have always been touted as the next big thing in Indian cricket, with their careers intertwining each other along the way. However, their most infamous moment together was not on the cricket pitch but rather on a talk show Koffee with Karan, hosted Bollywood director Karan Johar.
KL Rahul recently spoke in the YouTube show “Breakfast with Champions,” and shed light on various topics, including his career, life during his ban after that controversial episode of Koffee with Karan as well as the origin of his name.
In 2019, KL Rahul and Hardik Pandya made an appearance on popular talk show “Koffee with Karan” and there were quite a few unsavoury and controversial comments made during the length of the show. They were both suspended the BCCI due to this and were told to return home from the Australia tour.
In the YouTube show, Rahul said that it was a wake-up call for him to go in the right direction and insed that he was not a mischievous guy in school or college.

Nice. 👏🏽
KL Rahul | Breakfast with Champions https://t.co/COkzCaRodw
— Vinayakk (@vinayakkm) March 29, 2022
“It was like a wake-up call, like go in the right direction. I didn’t know how to handle that whole time initially. But it is what it is, it made me stronger,” he said.
My mother made up a story about the origin of my name: Rahul
A lot of interesting tidbits came out from this chat, the most noteworthy being that Rahul’s mother had made up a story regarding the origin of his name.
“Her story was that she was a huge Shah Rukh Khan fan and his characters in the 90s were Rahul, right? So, I used to go with that story. I told one of my friends. who watches probably a lot of Bollywood movies, and he said, ‘Bro, Shah Rukh’s first character as Rahul was in 1994. You’re born in 1992. So, it doesn’t make sense’,” Rahul said.
When he went to ask her about it, she said, “Something like that… Who cares now!”
Rahul found out he is going to lead India against South Africa on Day 1 of the Johannesburg test
Rahul also revealed that he was only informed on the morning of Day 1 of the Test match against South Africa in Johannesburg, earlier this year, that he could be required to lead India.

“When I got the opportunity to captain the country in Johannesburg in a Test match, it happened so suddenly. Virat told me in the bus on the morning of the game that ‘I may not play this game because I have a stiff back’. Till I was in the bus and till I reached the ground for warmups, I was like ‘no, Virat can’t miss a game because of a small injury’,” Rahul said.
“After the warmups is when the coach told me that he is not looking good and that I need to go wear the blazer and go for the toss. I didn’t have a blazer so I had to borrow Virat’s. When I was walking down the steps, I was like ‘this looks good on me’. I was always confident and happy,” he added.