Courtesy: LSG
KL Rahul, the captain of Lucknow Super Giants, has reportedly refused to be retained by the franchise ahead of the IPL 2025 mega auction, which is set to happen later this year. Ever since the owner of LSG Sanjiv Goenka and KL Rahul were involved in a heated argument after a big loss in the IPL last season, there have been many reports about obvious tensions between the franchise and the player, and it has seemingly come to a head.
Notably, in the two of the last three seasons of the IPL, KL Rahul has been the top run-scorer for Lucknow Super Giants, with 616 runs in the 2022 season, followed by 520 runs in the 2024 season. He wasn’t in the top of the run-scoring charts in 2023 because of injury, which kept him out of the tournament for the majority of the season, while under his leadership, the franchise reached two playoffs in three years as well.
KL Rahul reportedly told LSG owners about not committing to a potential retention for IPL 2025
In the aftermath of the public spat between Sanjeev Goenka and KL Rahul in the 2024 season, which ended for Lucknow Super Giants with a seventh place finish, both the parties had settled their differences in front of everyone when Zaheer Khan was unveiled as the new bowling coach. But despite that, with the speculation on the future of KL Rahul in LSG has been doing the rounds for months, he met the owners to tell them about not committing to a potential retention offer from them, as per the report from ESPNcricinfo.
Furthermore, Lucknow Super Giants are expected to make their final decision on whether to retain KL Rahul in the next few days. All the 10 franchises of the IPL have been given a deadline of 5PM on October 31, to submit their respective list of retained players to the IPL governing council, following which the mega auction for 2025 is going to be organised.
