Former India head coach Ravi Shastri on Thursday questioned KL Rahul’s approach with the bat in Lucknow Super Giants’ fruitless pursuit of 208 against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the IPL 2022 Eliminator round on Wednesday.
KL Rahul played a brilliant knock of 78 runs off 59 balls but was unable to take his side over the lines and as a result, Lucknow was knocked out of the competition for IPL 2022 final.
Though, Rahul raced to a good start as he helped Lucknow post 62 in the powerplay, hitting 26 off 17 balls, however, he held himself back and hit only one boundary in the next 7 overs as the asking rate was shooting up.
Despite being the top-scorer for his side, the right-handed batter ended up becoming a villain as several fans and experts slammed him for his ‘selfish knock’ and blamed it for the reason behind LSG’s defeat. This isn’t the first time that KL Rahul has been criticized for putting his side in danger through his ultra-cautious approach, especially in IPL.
Meanwhile, former Indian head coach Ravi Shastri has questioned Rahul’s approach in the game. Shastri observed that KL could have taken a ‘little more chances’ when Deepak Hooda was attacking the bowlers of RCB. Speaking about the same, Shastri said:
“They should have gone a little earlier. Sometimes, you wait too long but here, between the 9th and the 14th over, they should have been someone who should have been targeted, especially in that partnership,”
He added: “When Hooda and Rahul were going, I think even though he did as well as he did, KL could have taken a little more chances because Hooda was going. Take a little more chances and he could have targetted someone between the 9th and the 13th over because Harshal was going to come back in the end.”
“If they had got the required rate down at the stage, that would have made RCB a little nervous.”
