Lucknow Super Giants‘ South African assistant coach Lance Klusener has taken the blame of KL Rahul’s poor form on himself and the entire LSG team.
Lance Klusener made this statement on the light of KL Rahul going through a very poor run of form in IPL 2024 season. The LSG skipper has looked like a shadow of himself this season and his out of form batting has also negatively impacted the team. Lucknow currently find themselves 7th in the points table with one match to go in the league stages.
KL Rahul’s side have no option but to win against Mumbai Indians in their 14th IPL 2024 match in order to qualify for the play-offs with 14 points.
What did Lance Klusener say about KL Rahul’s run of form?
While speaking to media reporters recently, Lance Klusener made an honest claim about KL Rahul’s lean patch and how the team has contributed to it. Klusener also revealed that Rahul himself is frustrated with the way he has played this season. The LSG skipper’s role as the opening batter along with Quinton de Kock, hasn’t looked at it’s best either.
Both KL Rahul and de Kock were the focal point of the team in the last two seasons as they were largely responsible for LSG finishing in top 4. However this season, with a new coach coming in to replace Andy Flower and former mentor Gautam Gambhir, Lucknow have been very inconsistent in terms of batting as well as bowling.
Lance Klusener disclosed that due to the poor form, KL Rahul has had to go about rebuilding himself a couple of times in IPL 2024. The South African then put the blame on the entire batting order for not making him feels safe about his natural game by giving away their wickets.
Klusener explained that if the other LSG batters hadn’t lost their wickets around him, KL Rahul could have hit his form. But the team’s reluctancy to save their wickets further pushed Rahul to a dark corner.
“He is probably a little bit frustrated about his performances. He’s had to rebuild a lot of times. We have lost wickets around him and we haven’t allowed him to play his natural game.” – Lance Klusener told Sportstar Hindu.
It was due to his poor form that KL Rahul wasn’t included in the 15-man Indian squad for the ICC T20 World Cup 2024. He was an automatic choice for the Indian team during the previous T20 World Cup edition in Australia but he won’t be donning the blue jersey this time around.
Instead of KL Rahul, the Indian team picked Yashasvi Jaiswal to pair with captain Rohit Sharma while Rishabh Pant and Sanju Samson are the 2 wicket-keeping options.
KL Rahul’s IPL 2024 season
Despite going through a poor form, KL Rahul has still managed to score 465 runs from 13 matches with one more match to play. But IPL 2024 is the first season since 2018 that Rahul could not get past the 500-run mark. This season, his 465 runs have come at a 136.36 strike rate at an average of 35.77 with a best of 82.