“Owners From Business Background…”: Rahul’s Message Ahead Of IPL Auction

As the global cricketing spectrum inches closer to the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 auction, many top players are under the spotlight over their future. India batter and Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) captain KL Rahul is one such name. Rahul didn’t have the best of IPL 2024 season that saw him disappoint both with the bat and as a captain. His ouster from Team India’s T20I plans didn’t help his reputation either. As talks intensify over Rahul’s exit as LSG skipper, and potentially from the team too, the player has sent a subtle message to IPL team owners.

Rahul, during a chat on Nitin Kamath’s podcast, said that IPL owners these days come from business backgrounds and rely on data to a large extent over the selection of players. But, according to Rahul, data doesn’t guarantee success.

“Owners coming from business background in IPL, they do research and pick the team but it doesn’t guarantee that you will win every game. You might get the Best player based on Data but they might have a horrible year. Every player can have bad day in Sports. There’s nothing in sport that guarantees success. There’s no formula that can get you success,” said Rahul during the podcast.

During the podcast, Rahul also spoke about the Koffee With Karan episode with Hardik Pandya, that saw him being suspended from the Indian team.

Rahul had said: “The interview was a different world altogether. That changed me. I was a very shy, soft-spoken boy growing up. And then I played for India, and for the next three to four years, I became very confident. I had no problem being a huge group of people. People would know I have been in a room with 100 people because I would talk to everyone.”

“Now I do not, because the interview scarred me massively. Getting suspended from the team… I have never been suspended in school, never been punished. It just never happened to know how to handle it,” he added.