KL Rahul, the Lucknow Super Giants skipper, has been ruled out of the IPL due to a leg injury suffered earlier this week. This development also casts doubt on his participation in the World Test Championship final against Australia, which begins on June 7 at the Oval.
In the second over of their play against Royal Challengers Bangalore on Monday, Rahul tore a tendon in his right leg while pursuing a ball. At that moment, he had to be assisted off the pitch and did not return until a chase of 127 became surprisingly heated. In the hopes of winning the game, the 31-year-old walked out to bat at No. 11. But he couldn’t run between the wickets. As a result, No. 9 Amit Mishra faced every ball of the final over.
LSG eventually lost by 18 runs, and the game became engulfed in the Virat Kohli vs. Gautam Gambhir dispute, which Rahul attempted to alleviate by separating the two players.
Super Giants are second in the IPL points table, having won five of their ten games. Krunal Pandya, who takes over as interim captain, will now lead their drive for a second consecutive playoff berth. He has already led the team in one game, which was washed out against the Chennai Super Kings.
Rahul’s aspirations to score 500-plus runs for the sixth consecutive IPL are over. He is the only Indian who has even made it to the fifth round, and this time, he was 226 runs off the mark.
Rahul’s career has lately come to a fork in the road. After the first two Border-Gavaskar Trophy matches in February 2023, India stripped him of his vice-captaincy and dropped him from their Test XI. And he hasn’t appeared in a T20I for them in about a year. Only in 50-over cricket does he command a berth in the team, when he also serves as wicketkeeper. When the BCCI handed out central contracts two months ago, he was demoted from Grade A to B as a result of all of this.
This is Rahul’s second serious injury in two years, following a sports hernia that necessitated surgery in 2022.
