Lucknow Super Giants continued their winning ways in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024, beating the Gujarat Titans on Sunday to win their third match. Although the victory moved LSG to third place in the standings with 3 wins in 4 games, the form of their captain KL Rahul has many people worried. After LSG’s win over GT, the team seemed to try to prank their captain Rahul himself in a video that left fans divided.
In the video, an LSG staffer can be heard telling Rahul that he should be the “next defense minister of India”. Upon hearing this, Rahul said, “Are you teasing me about my strike rate too?”
The staff member later clarified that he called him because LSG continued to hold the defending record of over 160 points. Here is the video:
13-0 when defending 160+ pic.twitter.com/Zt67qS7p15
— Lucknow Supergiants (@LucknowIPL) April 8, 2024
For the uninitiated, this is the 13th time in IPL history that the Super Giants have successfully defended a total of 160 runs or more.
While the video might just be a joke, Rahul’s strike rate and intent have been under scrutiny for a while now and his recent performances haven’t done him any favors.
KL has played four IPL games so far and has scored only 126 runs at an average of 31.50 and a strike rate of only 128.57. He has scored a half-century, scoring 58 off 44 balls against RR, but has scores of 15 off 9, 20 off 14 and 33 in other situations.
The wicketkeeper-batsman has been disappointing with the bat in the IPL since the 2023 edition, which was cut short due to injury. In IPL 2023, KL scored 274 runs in 9 games at an average of 34.25 and a below-par strike rate of 113.22 with a best of 74 runs in two half-centuries.
Overall, KL has played 13 games for LSG since IPL 2023, scoring 400 runs at an average of 33.33 and a strike rate of just over 117. He has scored three fifties and his highest score is 74. While other stats still seem so good, his strike rate looks really average for a format that requires openers to hit big balls from the first ball.
Of the 57 players who have faced at least 150 balls in the past two IPLs, KL is the only batsman with a strike rate below 120.
With ANI input
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