IPL 2023: Ravi Shastri shuts KL Rahul for giving excuses for slow batting, says 'when you have two chances...'

Former India captain and head coach, Ravi Shastri was in no mood to buy Lucknow Super Giants' (LSG) captain KL Rahul's excuse for slow batting during the game against Rajasthan Royals (RR).

SportsTak

• Thu • 20 Apr 2023

Former India captain and head coach, Ravi Shastri was in no mood to buy Lucknow Super Giants' (LSG) captain KL Rahul's excuse for slow batting during the game against Rajasthan Royals (RR). After LSG managed to secure the win, Rahul reflected on the slow approach by him and his opening partner Kyle Mayers, who combined for 82 runs for the opening wicket but those runs came in 64 balls. Rahul scored 39 runs off 32 balls while Mayers scored 51 runs off 42 balls. The LSG captain affirmed that after playing the first over from Trent Boult he knew that it was not a high-scoring pitch.

"At the 10-over mark, the message we sent out was that maybe 165 is a good total, so, let us try to get to 160. Did not have to set ourselves very high. They are a quality team, they have good bowlers. We fell 10 runs short maybe but we made it up with the ball in the end. There was no dew and that was fair on both teams," Rahul opined.

"We came in yesterday and we were thinking 180 is a par score. Knowing the batters they have, the mindset was to get 15 runs extra. When Boult bowled the first over, me and Kyle had a chat and we said that the ball was not coming on. We assessed it quite well but if there were a couple more partnerships in the middle, we could have gotten more," he added.

Responding to Rahul's statement, Shastri affirmed that when a player gets a couple of chances, he needs to cash in and convert starts into a big score.

"Absolutely (needs to get the strike up). All that talk about 160, I don't buy it. When you have two chances, if you convert that 39 to 60 or 70, 160 becomes 175. You need someone in the top 3 to carry on and play that long innings," Ravi Shastri told Star Sports.

"If the Rajasthan Royals team had done that. They would have won this game. Plenty to lean from this game for both sides on how to approach and taking chances at the right time. It's still early days in the tournament. Rajasthan is No. 1 and Lucknow is No. 2 and they will learn a lot from this," he added.