Former Australia pacer and 2012 IPL winner with Riders of the Knights of Calcutta – Brett Lee feels that Lucknow Supergiants Captain KL Rahul is under immense pressure.
Brett Lee made these comments about KL Rahul after watching him score 25 runs off 21 balls during Lucknow’s failed attempt to chase a mammoth 236. LSG had hosted Kolkata Knight Riders at the Ekana Stadium last night for the reverse match. The visitors, after scoring that target, finally claimed victory and completed the double over LSG with a 98-run victory.
What did Brett Lee say about KL Rahul?
While speaking to Jio Cinema after Kolkata Knight Riders defeated Lucknow Super Giants, Brett Lee had quite a few things to say about KL Rahul. Lee began by highlighting Rahul’s slow approach and compared his 25-run knock with that of KKR’s openers. He claimed that there was a contrasting difference between Rahul’s approach and that of Salt-Narine.
Brett Lee then admitted that KL Rahul played extremely slow from the start of the match, scoring runs at a racing pace. Rahul’s slow approach, in turn, totally impacted the game for LSG as the next batsmen gave away their wicket quickly by trying to smear every ball.
The former right-arm pacer then claimed that KL Rahul is under immense pressure, all because of the fact that he failed to score runs in IPL 2024. If we talk about Rahul’s figures this season, then he scored 431 runs from 11 matches. league so far with a strike rate of 141.31. He has an average of 39.18 and has 3 half-centuries to his name.
As a result of his poor form and slow approach, Rahul was not picked by India’s main selection committee for the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup 2024. Instead of his inclusion as a wicket-keeper batsman, the selectors chose Rajasthan captain Royals, Sanju Samson. and Delhi Capitals captain Rishabh Pant in the 15-man squad.
“I think if you look at the two opening batsmen from both sides, it’s a complete contrast. KKR did well. They come out of the blocks quickly, they are scoring runs. And then you have KL Rahul at the other end, that’s it, ya You know, running a ball and putting a lot of pressure on the back end.”
“You know, we watched four games and I picked KL Rahul here, the first four games he played. His strike rate was 129, then it went to 150 and now he’s come back and said, ‘well yeah, you know the bowlers.’ “I’ve done a great job. I think there’s a lot of pressure on him because he hasn’t scored the runs that he should,” Brett Lee said via Jio Cinema.
Rahul sheds light on the huge 98-run defeat
While speaking in the post-match interview, KL Rahul shed light on his team’s chaotic 98-run defeat. He claimed that LSG was poor in all departments and that there were too many runs on the board to score. “We didn’t (hit our lengths consistently), we just performed poorly overall with the bat, the ball and in the field.” – Raul said.