Head coach of the Lucknow Super Giants, Justin Langer, is optimistic that captain KL Rahul will be fit for the team’s opening IPL 2024 match against the Rajasthan Royals on Sunday, March 24. Due to a recurrence of a quadriceps ailment, Rahul missed the last four Tests of the recently finished Test series against England. He then traveled to London to consult with a specialist.
“Unfortunately, there has been a hold-up on the plane for KL, who was supposed to arrive this afternoon to play in the practice game tonight,” Langer stated on Wednesday, March 20. “He’ll be at the ground later on tonight, so he’ll probably arrive just after the start of the day’s play.”
“He’ll be with the boys and the team for the first time when he arrives. There is excitement among all to see him. We are aware that he put in a lot of effort to complete all of his return-to-play procedures. He’s put in a lot of work. He has been working on his skills and hitting a lot of balls. Hopefully, he’s prepared to depart. The captain’s presence will be appreciated.”
Rahul, the 2020 Orange Cap winner, will have an exciting season since at the end of it, he might be selected for the T20 World Cup team. While players like Rohit Sharma, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, and Ruturaj Gaikwad currently hold the top spot in the batting order for India’s T20I team, Rahul could establish himself as a middle-order keeper-bat, a role he performed admirably in his breakout 2016 IPL season with Royal Challengers Bengaluru. With the trade acquisition and Rahul’s Karnataka teammate Devdutt Padikkal’s ability to start as an opener, LSG would not be left short-changed in such a move.
Although Langer refrained from disclosing LSG’s batting order intentions, he did state that a strong season would boost Rahul’s chances of playing in the World Cup. “In my opinion, and I’ve probably been saying this for 25 years, everyone benefits when the team does well. Thus, in KL’s opinion, if he leads the Lucknow Super Giants to an IPL triumph, it indicates that he would have performed admirably both as a player and as a captain, as well as having excellent wicket-keeping skills.
“Everyone will benefit from team success. That will be the message for every player, including KL and Bishi [Ravi Bishnoi], as well as a few others who are competing for slots in the T20 World Cup. That’s all a part of our game. Their chances of being chosen will rise in direct proportion to how much they focus on performing well for Lucknow.
It’s a cute little problem, but we can figure it out. It’s good to have such a talented team.”
In addition, the new IPL coach believed that the Ekana Stadium’s wickets would be more favorable for batting than they had been the previous year, when just three of the seven games played there resulted in scores above 170.
“We’ve worked so hard on the pitches here. I am fully aware of it. The water that enters the pitches has been altered. In addition, some of the soil has been altered. The pitches’ soil was altered at the conclusion of the previous season, and the World Cup saw some impressive outcomes. Here, they engaged in a few games. Some of the games had a lot of points. I believe the game between Australia and South Africa had a fairly high score.
This is where we’ve trained now. They acknowledged that we needed to enhance the pitches from last year, so we’re all really hopeful that we see terrific pitches. We had a practice game under lights last night, and we’ve had two very good training sessions on the middle wickets. The pitches were excellent. But based on what I’ve observed thus far, there’s nothing to be concerned about.”
