IPL 2022 – ‘Not suited to take this responsibility’: Sanjay Manjrekar slams KL Rahul for his captaincy

After Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) 14-run loss against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) within the Eliminator at Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Wednesday, many followers and specialists have come down onerous on LSG skipper KL Rahul for his knock.

In a knockout sport, Rahul, throughout his aspect’s mammoth chase of 208, top-scored with 79 off 58 balls, but it surely wasn’t sufficient. The precise-handed batter fell within the nineteenth over to Josh Hazlewood, and ultimately, LSG misplaced the match and obtained crashed out of the fifteenth season of the cash-rich league.

Many specialists raised questions on the best way Rahul paced his innings, together with former Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar. The cricketer-turned-commentator noticed that as an alternative of taking part in longer, Rahul ought to’ve targeted on taking part in faster.

“Ok.L Rahul himself has the flexibility to try this. Each time he determined to play the large shot, it got here off. He performed a few terrific photographs in opposition to (Josh) Hazelwood. He can do it when he needs to, however he simply has this very deep-rooted perception, or an angle, or an strategy, that he needs to bat longer relatively than faster,” mentioned Manjrekar on the T20 Time-Out present on ESPNCricinfo.

“If I used to be his coach, I’d simply take that call out of his hand even when he’s the captain, for we’ve seen quite a lot of video games the place the groups would profit immensely if Ok.L Rahul simply batted faster relatively than longer,” he added.

Manjrekar drew comparisons with the likes of MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, and Rohit Sharma and reckoned that Rahul is ‘temperamentally not suited’ for the duty of being the principle batter, particularly when he’s captaining within the IPL.

“We’ve seen sufficient of KL Rahul to now know that when he turns into this participant, the captain, the important thing participant of the aspect. I imply, Virat Kohli loves that form of duty. Dhoni liked it. I believe Rohit Sharma, barring this season, usually likes that form of duty,” asserted the 56-year-old.

“Perhaps Ok.L Rahul temperamentally will not be suited to take this type of duty the place he’s the person who has obtained to get the job finished. They’re simply made of various mettle, and perhaps Ok.L Rahul isn’t,” Manjrekar added additional.