Not Lucknow Super Giants! KL Rahul Names 'Ideal' IPL Franchise For Him To Play At

not lucknow super giants lsg! kl rahul names royal challengers bengaluru rcb as ‘ideal’ ipl franchise for him to play at

KL Rahul has been associated with the Lucknow Super Giant ever since the franchise’s inception in 2022. In fact, he has been the regular captain of the franchise and is the highest earning skipper in all of IPL 2024. Rahul has had a memorable time at LSG, where he has led the franchise to two back-to-back finishes in the IPL playoffs in 2022 and 2023. However, the star wicketkeeper-batter has taken another franchise’s name as a team that would have been ideal for him, and it is none other than his former side, the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB).

In an interaction with Ravichandran Ashwin on his YouTube channel, KL Rahul said that he is from Karnataka and Chinnaswamy Stadium is h first home. He said that everyone wants to play for their home state or home city, and hence playing for RCB would have been an ideal scenario for him.

“You can never change the fact that I am a Karnataka player, I am from Bengaluru. KCA is my home, Chinnaswamy Stadium is my home first and then IPL is happening. Everyone wants to play for their home state or their home city and since I am from Bengaluru, playing for Bengaluru would have been ideal,” Rahul said.

However, he added that when he started dreaming of playing the IPL, players would already move around to different franchises. He cited the example of Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni who played for RCB and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) respectively despite hailing from Delhi and Ranchi.

“Like I said, when I started thinking or dreaming of IPL and T20 cricket, by then this was already a set thing that the players would move around. Like, even from the first season, Virat was from Delhi and Mahi bhai is from Jharkhand, Ranchi, he plays for CSK. So that had already happened. So growing up, we felt that it was a huge change,” Rahul added.

“We obviously wanted to play for the same franchise if possible. But all we wanted was an opportunity to play and showcase our talent and climb up to play for our country. Yes, moving around is not easy, but you sort of get used to it,” he further added.

KL Rahul played for RCB in two IPL seasons in 2013 and 2016. He slammed 417 runs during his stay at the franchise, including 397 runs in the 2016 season including 4 half-centuries.