“It was a good ride, thank you for the love see u on the other side:” KL Rahul
KL Rahul decided to part with Punjab Kings ahead of the Mega auction and instead decided to sit for the auction. Recently, Eight franchises of the IPL have announced their retained list ahead of the Mega auction. There have been surprised retention and release of players. Many franchises let go of their star players and retained uncapped and young players.
However, it was reported that KL Rahul was to be retained by the Punjab Kings. But It was his own decision to part with the Punjab kings after the IPL 2021 and sit in the auction instead. The Royal challenger’s star took and Instagram and announced his decision. He said:
“It was a good ride, thank you for the love ?? see u on the other side ?? @punjabkingsipl.”
As per the reports of the Times of India, KL Rahul is going to be picked by the Lucknow-based franchise. He might be in that franchise in the captaincy role. This is something we will get to know during the IPL mega auction only.
He was bought by the Punjab Kings in 2018 for 11 crores and since then he has been a consistent player. Before being associated with the Punjab kings, he has been a part of the Royal challengers Bangalore and Sun Riser Hyderabad.
Over the last four years since his association with the Punjab Kings, he has accumulated a great number of runs. He scored 659 runs in 14 games in 2018 and followed it up with tournament aggregates of 593, 670, and 626 runs in 2019, 2020, and 2021 respectively. He also won the Orange Cap in 2020.
Head coach of Punjab Kings Anil Kumble revealed that Punjab kings wanted to retain Rahul as we wanted him to continue to lead this team. However, Rahul showed no interest in staying in the team and instead wanted to go to the auction. We could not stop him, we respect his choice and we let him go. However, we bought him keeping the long-term prospect in mind.
“Of course, the major challenge for us was Rahul. Obviously, we wanted to retain him. That’s one of the reasons we chose him as captain 2 years ago, so he could be the core of the team. But he decided to go into the auction, we respect that decision. It’s the players’ prerogative,” Anil Kumble said.
Before Rahul became the captain of the Punjab Kings, Ravichandran Ashwin was leading the team and he took over the captaincy from him. Rahul led the team in 27 games and managed to end up on the winning side on 11 occasions. The side lost 14 games under him. In the two games that went into the Super Over, PBKS won one and lost another under Rahul.
