Follow UsLucknow Super Giants head coach Justin Langer is hopeful of KL Rahul captaining the side against Rajasthan Royals in Jaipur on March 24 (Sunday). The 31-year-old didn’t feature in the last four Tests against England due to a quadriceps injury but is expected to be fit for LSG’s first game of the Indian Premier League 2024.
“KL was supposed to be here this afternoon to play in the practice game tonight, but unfortunately, he's had a hold-up on the aeroplane. He'll be at the ground later on tonight, so he'll probably arrive just after the start of the day's play,” Langer said on March 20.
"He'll be around for the first time to be with the boys and to be with the team. Everyone's looking forward to seeing him. We know he has worked very hard to tick off all his return-to-play protocols. He's worked very hard. He's been practising, he's been hitting lots of balls. He's hopefully ready to go. It's going to be nice to have the captain with us."
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A lot of focus will also be on Rahul’s batting position. It’s been 492 days since he last played a T20I for India, with his last T20I appearance coming way back in the T20 World Cup in 2022. But a lot of water has flown under the bridge in the past year, so the door is by no means shut on Rahul when it comes to T20 cricket. He even has an outside chance of making it to the T20 World Cup in June.
For that, though, the 31-year-old will have to make a drastic shift in IPL 2024 — bat in the middle-order, something he’s not done in the IPL since 2016. The reasons are straightforward. For one, India are already stacked with openers, with Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, and Rohit Sharma all penciled in as sure-shot members to make it to the final 15.
Apart from the aforementioned three, there is also Ruturaj Gaikwad, who is already being groomed for a leadership role and scored a breakthrough ton against Australia as recently as three months ago. Secondly, and most importantly, it’s down the order that there’s a vacancy for the wicketkeeper’s slot, for which Rahul will be contesting.
"I haven't been coaching for two years since I left the Australian cricket team, and for two years I've been sleeping very well at night. Now, it's hard to sleep at night because it's very hard to fit so much talent into 11 positions. It's a good problem to have. It's a sweet problem, but we'll work it out. It's nice to have so much talent in our squad,” said Langer.
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"My view - and I've said this for probably 25 years - (is that) if the team does well, then everyone gets rewarded. And therefore, from KL's point of view, if he captains the Lucknow Super Giants to an IPL victory, it means he would've played well himself and he would've captained very well, and he would've wicket-kept very well.
"If we have team success, everyone will be rewarded. That'll be the message for all the players, including Bishi (Ravi Bishnoi) and KL, and there's a few others who will be vying for T20 World Cup spots. That's all part of the game we play. The more they concentrate on playing well for Lucknow, the more their chances of being selected will increase.”
Langer also said that the surfaces at the Ekana Stadium will be better this time around. "We've done a lot of work here on the pitches. I've been all across it. They've changed the water that goes into the pitches. They've also changed some of the soil. At the end of last season, they changed the soil on the pitches, and we saw some good results in the World Cup. They played a few games here. There were some high scoring games. I think South Africa vs Australia was a very high-scoring game, right?
"We've trained here now. We had a practice game last night under lights, and we've had two very good training sessions on the middle wickets, and the pitches were excellent - very, very good... they recognised that we needed to improve the pitches from last year, so we're all very hopeful that we see excellent pitches. From what I've seen so far, though, we have nothing to worry about."
Talking about coaching in the IPL for the first time, Langer said: “I cannot believe the depth of talent in India. I've seen some players already, just in our franchise, (and) my mind is blown away by the amount of young talent in this country."