In a massive development ahead of the Indian Premier League (IPL 2025) retention deadline, India’s star batsman KL Rahul has reportedly rejected a retention offer from the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) management. .

According to a report by ESPNCricinfo, it is understood that during a recent meeting with LSG owners, Rahul had not committed to accept any offer if made and is ready to participate in the upcoming IPL 2025 mega auction.

There has already been a lot of speculation about Rahul’s future with the franchise since there was a public dispute between the player and team owner Sanjiv Goenka during last season. Added to that, LSG finished seventh in IPL 2024 under Rahul’s captaincy after reaching the playoffs in his first two seasons.

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KL Rahul’s strike rate has been a major problem

LSG signed KL Rahul in his debut season in the drafts ahead of the IPL 2022 mega auction for a staggering amount of INR 17 crore.

Rahul has been one of LSG’s prolific scorers, topping the charts for three seasons. He finished as the second highest run-scorer in IPL 2022 with 616 runs, but missed the second half of the 2023 season due to injury. However, he was again LSG’s top scorer in 2024 with 520 runs. Despite Rahul’s volume of runs, his strike rate has been the center of the discussion, which mainly focused on the lower end.

During the IPL 2023 season, Rahul played in 9 matches and scored 274 runs at an average of 34.25 but a lower strike rate of 113.22.

He improved slightly with a strike rate of 136.12 in IPL 2024, but often came under scrutiny, especially as the league has seen much higher scoring rates in the last two seasons.

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