Asia Cup 2023: Venkatesh Prasad shares picture with Suniel Shetty, says 'secretly prayed for KL Rahul'

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Remember the time when Venkatesh Prasad criticised KL Rahul publicly on Twitter (now 'X') and got into an online war of words with Aakash Chopra who tried defending the wicketkeeper-batter?

During the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2023 earlier this year, the former India pacer dug out stats to highlight the poor run of KL Rahul and accused the management of favouritism. He said the numerous other talents in the country were being ignored to accommodate Rahul in the eleven.

Rahul was soon sacked as vice-captain of the Indian Test team and was also dropped from the playing eleven. The famous episode is now a thing of the past. Five months down the line, Venkatesh Prasad is 'secretly' praying for KL Rahul's success ahead of the Asia Cup 2023 and World Cup 2023.

He uploaded a picture on Tuesday in which he revealed that he was at the Swami Narayan temple in New Jersey with Bollywood actor Suniel Shetty who is the father-in-law of the star cricketer. He added that he prayed for Rahul to silence all his critics including him.

"Visited the Swami Narayan temple in New Jersey with Anna. Prayed for well being of all Bharatvasis & for the Indian Team to do well in the World Cup. Also secretly prayed for KL to smash it to all corners, have a great world cup and silence his critics like me. Sab khush rahein," Prasad said in a tweet.

KL Rahul is making a comeback from injury and will be in action for the first time after May 1. He was ruled out with a thigh injury for which he underwent a surgery in May. After spending time in rehabilitation at the NCA, Rahul has recovered from the original injury but is having a small niggle, chief selector Ajit Agarkar revealed while announcing India's 17-member squad for Asia Cup on Monday.

Though being named in the squad, KL Rahul is very likely to miss a couple of matches. Wicketkeeper-batter Sanju Samson will be travelling with the side to Sri Lanka as a reserve player. India will face Pakistan on September 2.