KL Rahul, the captain of Lucknow Super Giants, had another bad match with the bat in this IPL season. He scored only 29 runs in 33 balls before getting out against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Wednesday at Hyderabad. LSG won the toss and chose to bat first. But their batters found it hard to score runs on a slow pitch that helped the spinners.
It was a must-win game for both teams. LSG wanted to set a big target by batting first. However, their plan did not work out well. The Lucknow batters struggled to score quickly on the difficult pitch conditions.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar was the first bowler to make an impact, dismissing Quinton de Kock and Marcus Stoinis cheaply. However, Rahul kept the innings together from one end to assist his team reach 27/2 in the opening six overs.
KL Rahul built a strong partnership with Krunal Pandya. Then, in the 10th over, he tried hitting the opposite team’s bowlers. He scored a boundary off the first ball from Pat Cummins. But on the last ball, KL Rahul was caught out by T Natarajan at fine leg.
Fans were very unhappy with KL Rahul’s slow batting. They criticized him a lot on social media sites. Here are some of their reactions:
Many fans said that Rahul was making excuses for BCCI not picking him in India’s team for the 2024 T20 World Cup. They said his poor form in IPL 2024 is the real reason.
“KL Rahul not even playing Run a ball, he is justifying BCCI for dropping him from world cup squad. Thank you Ajit Agarkar for saving us from this terror,” a fan wrote.
“Thank You @BCCI for removing Parasite named KL Rahul urf BKL from India’s T20 setup!! I hope they kick him out of ODIs & Tests too, we have Samson & Dhruv now to keep in those 2 formats. Remove this parasite from all formats!!” another fan commented.
“KL Rahul showing why he was not an ideal Wicket Keeper option,” wrote another fan.
KL Rahul not named in India’s 2024 T20 World Cup squad
With too many players contending for the wicketkeeper position, Indian selectors chose Rishabh Pant and Sanju Samson as specialist glovesmen for the 2024 T20 World Cup. They had to leave out players like as KL Rahul, Dinesh Karthik, and Jitesh Sharma.
While Dinesh Karthik should be disappointed to have missed out despite his great IPL performance, Jitesh fell down the pecking order because to the Punjab Kings’ poor run.
KL Rahul, however, gave a solid account of himself with the bat, but his failure to convert beginnings into huge knocks contributed to his dismissal. He scored 20 runs in 11 of his 13 innings, but only managed three half-centuries.