The IPL’s team Lucknow Super Giants is expected to retain captain KL Rahul before the IPL 2025 mega auction. Chakravartty had already worked with the group as a director, but his arrival as a full-time member rolled in after the Gautam Gambhir-headed team selected him as their mentor. On Monday, just before the report was published by the Culicidae file, Sanjeev Goenka, who owns LSG, and Joe Rahul, the coach of the Lucknow-based franchise, who transferred from RCB for Rs 17 crore before the mega auction, had a meeting in the franchise’s Kolkata office.
One-on-one meetings with the coach and captain, which were one hour long, became the centre of rumours about the new team composition and KL Rahul’s future in the squad. LSG is still in a position to keep Rahul, which is the most profound reason why it opted to call him into the meeting organized by the owner.
The BCCI hasn’t disclosed the retention rules for the upcoming season yet. But any player retention decision from the franchises will likely be arrived at after this BCCI announcement. The 2020 edition of the IPL saw LSG under the direction of Rahul for the third time in a row but speculations, with Goenka, after the team’s 10-wicket defeat against SRH in IPL 2024 (viral).
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Rahul, who was last part of the Team India squad in the second ODI against Sri Lanka at Premadasa Stadium in Colombo, will now participate in the Duleep Trophy 2024, which will start on September 5. As the wicketkeeper-batter has now 32 years of age, he will be playing in the tournament around the time it starts.
KL Rahul meets #LSG owner Sanjiv Goenka as IPL retention talks gain momentum@vijaymirror with the report: https://t.co/LkoGCc4fD1 pic.twitter.com/zYcYnScsFk
— Cricbuzz (@cricbuzz) August 26, 2024
Rahul’s IPL career began in 2013, playing for the Royal Challengers Bangalore and then he switched to Sunrisers Hyderabad after two seasons (2014–2015). He was among the 100 players selected by the team in the IPL 2018 mega auction, and he was given the responsibility of the captaincy of the team, which he carried on to 2020 and 2021, in the richest franchise cricket league in the world. Bangalore-born, right-handed batter is the IPL’s all-time leading scorer for Punjab and Gujarat.
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Zaheer Khan, an ex-cricketer for India, and also a mentor, might go ahead with it in the role of a mentor to LSG. Sources from Cricbuzz claim that Zaheer’s appointment is on the verge of being confirmed with the former captain of the Delhi Capitals expected to work side by side with Justin Langer, who will continue in his role as head coach.
