'Most HIDEOUS innings in IPL' - Ex-India pacer RIPS APART Rahul for his snail-paced knock in LSG-RCB tie

KL Rahul-led Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) beat Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in match 15 of the IPL 2023 on Monday (April 10) at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru. Opting to bowl first, LSG were in for the leather hunt as fifties from Faf du Plessis (79*), Virat Kohli (61) and Glenn Maxwell (59) took RCB to 212 for 2. In reply, LSG rode on Marcus Stoinis' 65 (30), Nicholas Pooran's 62 (19) and Ayush Badoni's 30 (24) to chase down the total on the last ball of the contest with one wicket to spare.

While LSG eventually won the game, they were nowhere in the hunt being reduced to 23 for 3 in no time during the powerplay overs. Skipper Rahul didn't hog much of the strike but went at a very slow pace throughout the first ten overs. The right-hander was 17 (18) after the halfway mark of LSG's run-chase with Marcus Stoinis doing the bulk of the scoring. After Stoinis fell, Rahul also departed for an unimpressive 18 (20) and was slammed for his inning left, right and centre on social media platforms.

Dodda Ganesh, India's former pacer, also joined the bandwagon and slammed Rahul for his snail-paced knock in what was a high-scoring thriller in Bengaluru on Monday evening. Taking to his official Twitter handle, Ganesh wrote, "This innings from KL Rahul has to be the most hideous innings played in the history of IPL ever considering the context of the game. Man. What’s in his mind? Seriously. This can’t happen for so long at this level. It’s not school cricket."

He added, "Not one shot with intent from KL Rahul in the PP while chasing 213. Don’t know what’s in his mind. You simply can’t bat like this #IPL2023"

Rahul's form and strike rate have been a cause of concern for quite some time. After the contest, he himself spoke about his knock and said, "When you are chasing 210 + you need to go hard. Sometimes you lose wickets but the ball was swinging a bit early for them and got wickets. That puts some pressure on you but the way Stoin and Pooran played was brilliant. The reason we have got 2 points here is because of the way they batted."

Rahul-led LSG are the table-toppers with three wins from four games and will now host Punjab Kings (PBKS) in Lucknow on Saturday evening (April 15).