Lucknow will look for a better captain than KL Rahul in IPL 2025: Amit Mishra

Veteran Indian leg-spinner Amit Mishra reckons Lucknow Super Giants will look for a better captain than KL Rahul in the upcoming season of the Indian Premier League. Rahul led LSG to the playoffs in the first two seasons as a leader in 2022 and 2023 but the franchise failed to qualify for the final four in the last edition, with seven wins and as many losses in 14 matches.

LSG finished with 14 points, the same as Royal Challengers Bengaluru, who finished fourth but the KL Rahul-led team had an inferior Net Run Rate. Mishra feels the player with the right mentality should be backed as a leader in the team. 

“It does not matter if he is in the Indian team or not. But a person who has the right mentality for T20s should be the captain. Someone who plays for the team should be the captain. I am sure LSG will look for a better captain,” Amit Mishra said during his interaction with Subhankar Mishra.

On the other hand, after Lucknow’s ignominious loss of 10 wickets against Sunrisers Hyderabad, there was a heated argument between KL Rahul and team owner Sanji Goenka near the boundary rope. Mishra, who is part of the LSG squad, said people hyped up the incident but Goenka was disappointed after the franchise lost back-to-back matches by huge margins.

“Goenka was disappointed. We lost two back-to-back matches very badly. Against KKR, we lost by some 90-100 runs and against SRH, the match was finished within 10 overs. It felt like we were bowling them during a net practice session. If I am so angry about it, will someone who has actually put money into the team not feel angry?” Mishra, who played for LSG in 2024, said.

“It was not a huge deal. But I later came to know that he said that the bowling was very bad and the team should have shown some fight. It looked like you have completely surrendered. But I feel people and media hyped it up a bit,” he added.

KL Rahul will return to action in the upcoming tour of Sri Lanka, which will begin on July 27.