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Former India batter Wasim Jaffer described Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) captain KL Rahul’s conservative knock against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) as a surprising and painful performance. Jaffer stated that being captain, Rahul ought to lead by example.
Lucknow beat Bangalore by one wicket in the IPL 2023 match at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Monday, April 10. While Marcus Stoinis (65 off 30) and Nicholas Pooran (62 off 19) came up with outstanding efforts in the chase of 213, Rahul was dismissed for 18 off 20 balls. His knock consisted of a solitary boundary.
Sharing his views on the LSG’s skipper performance, Jaffer said during a discussion on ESPNcricinfo:
“I am surprised. It was a bit painful as well. When you are chasing 213 and you are the captain, you need to lead from the front.”
Urging the right-handed batter to show better intent, Jaffer explained that Lucknow have a strong enough batting line-up for Rahul to play attacking cricket. He elaborated:
“Rahul will have to change his intent. LSG have a very good batting line-up. In the current team, Krunal Pandya hasn’t fired yet, same with Deepak Hooda. Also, there is a lot of depth in the batting. He will need to show some intent because the team has really good back-ups. It’s not like LSG would not be able to score runs if Rahul gets out.”
The 45-year-old further stated that the captain’s lack of initiative with the willow is putting additional pressure on the other batters in the team. Jaffer explained:
“We have seen Rahul play blazing knocks, but sometimes in franchise cricket, he takes up a little too much time. That puts pressure on the non-striker and the players in the dugout as well. The other batters thus have to take unnecessary risks. Rahul can play attacking cricket. It’s just that he needs to bat with a more positive intent.”
Rahul was the fifth wicket to fall in the chase with the score reading 105. Pooran and Ayush Badoni (30 off 24) then added 84 runs for the sixth wicket to bring the LSG innings back on track.
“I want to score more runs and get the strike rate up as well” - KL Rahul
Speaking at the post-match presentation, LSG captain Rahul admitted that his efforts were not up to the mark. He commented:
“Not ideal for me, I want to score more runs and get the strike rate up as well. We've played on two tough Lucknow wickets, and today we lost three wickets so I went slower. I wanted to stay till the end and play with Nicky [Nicholas Pooran].”
Before his knock on Monday, the LSG skipper registered scores of eight, two, and 35 in the franchise’s first three matches.
