Amid doubts over his future as captain of the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), star batter KL Rahul met with the franchise owner Sanjeev Goenka at his office earlier this week. Recent reports jave claimed that LSG are set to retain Rahul for upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL) season 2025, but not as a captain. This comes after Goenka was seen having a heated chat with LSG captain Rahul last season after SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) took just 9.4 overs to chase down 166.
Rahul’s future as captain has remained in the air ever since that chat with LSG owner Goenka. Reports have also claimed that Rahul might even leave the franchise and is set to enter the IPL 2025 mega auction.
As dark clouds loom over Rahul’s future at LSG, the owner Goenka has opened up on his bond with the star batter.
“I don’t want to comment on speculation. All I will say is KL Rahul is family,” Goenka was quoted as saying by RevSportz.
On Monday, Rahul met Goenka at his office in Alipore, Kolkata to discuss things. Both had a long discussion for around four hours after which Rahul left for Bengaluru, National Cricket Academy to start his Duleep Trophy practice.
“The meeting was official with the CEO Sanjiv Goenka on Monday, the captaincy and retention topics were discussed. However, Rahul is unlikely to captain the side in the upcoming edition as he wants to explore himself more as a batter. Goenka has full confidence in Rahul and he will be retained as a player, but will not be seen captaining the side,” sources close to the Lucknow-based franchise told IANS.
“We are still exploring the captaincy option but with BCCI agreeing on player retention conditions we have two players (Krunal Pandya and Nicholas Poran) in race,” he added.
As far as the Duleep Trophy is concerned, Rahul will be playing for Team ‘A’ captained by Shubman Gill.
(With IANS Inputs)
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