Kings XI Punjab opener Lokesh Rahul (50 off 14 balls) slammed the quickest fifty of the Indian Premier League against Gautam Gambhir’s Delhi Daredevils on Sunday.

Talking about his exceptional innings, KL Rahul credited Chris Gayle’s advice after slamming the fastest fifty in IPL.

“I have realized over the years playing with you (while being part of the RCB squad), and I have spoken to you over the last couple of years about how to pace the innings and you always keep telling about getting into good positions and then body reacts. That’s all I was trying to do and I’m really happy that it came off today,” Rahul told IPLT20.

Explosive batsman Chris Gayle was all praise for KL Rahul while talking about the knock.

“It was fantastic! Was it your plan to execute from the first over?You put the bowlers on the back-foot in the first over and then the momentum was actually with you and then you got to be very explosive and it was very good to see,” Gayle asked Rahul.

KL Rahul also explained what was going on his mind while he was playing the biggest IPL innings of his IPL career.

“I didn’t plan to play this innings that way. I just went there, I wanted to play couple of balls in. But the first ball (Trent) Boult bowled, he tried to swing it in, but there was no swing so I knew that the ball was going to come straight and I just wanted to take him on straight away. I knew that once the ball gets older it is going to get harder for the batsmen batting down the order. So my plan was to make sure that the new ball goes for lot of runs so that the batsmen batting after me will find it easier and they don’t have a bigger asking rate. So that was the plan for me to strike hard early,” Rahul said.

When Chris Gayle pointed out to Rahul that he seemed unaware of his feet, Rahul said, “Fastest fifty, you seemed a bit surprised when you saw everyone were clapping, like you didn’t realize that you actually reached fifty, but you hit the fastest fifty in the IPL history. That’s a great record and I think you will have many more to score in this format.”

KL Rahul explained that he was not aware of the record and only realised when star all-rounder Yuvraj Singh pointed it out to him.

“I was worried for a bit that you were going to break my 11-ball (sic. 12) fifty (record).”

“That was international, and this is T20 and that’s when I realized that maybe this is IPL and a fastest fifty. So yeah, I am happy!” Rahul added.