KL Rahul might be the most sought-after player at the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 mega auction. Released by the Lucknow Super Giants, many believe that KL Rahul would return to his old franchise, the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB). With a need for a captain and opener to replace Faf du Plessis, getting KL Rahul back would make a lot of sense. But RCB won’t be the only franchise that’ll go hard after KL Rahul.
KL Rahul often gets criticized for his lack of intent, but it seems he’s made a willing choice to bat slow. Having played for slightly weaker batting teams since leaving RCB, the batter from Karnataka had decided that he’d anchor the innings rather than being aggressive all the way through. He might have shed his approach now, as he recently talked about playing with freedom going forward.
KL Rahul gets released from Lucknow Super Giants (LSG)
LSG snubbed their captain Rahul and retained Nicholas Pooran, Ravi Bishnoi, Mayank Yadav, Mohsin Khan and Ayush Badoni in the squad. On the other hand, RCB and CSK retained three (Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar and Yash Dayal) and five players (Ruturaj Gaikwad, Matheesha Pathirana, Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja and MS Dhoni), respectively. The southern franchises will head into the auction with a bank of Rs 83 crore (RCB) and Rs 55 crore (CSK) to fill 22 and 20 spots, respectively.
The Indian Premier League is all set to return with its massive mega auction in the 2025 season, with the event taking place on November 24 (Sunday) and 25 (Monday) at Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. One of the players who everyone will have their eyes on is KL Rahul. He was released by Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) ahead of the mega auction, after captaining the side for the last three years.
He will be one of the players that teams will be gunning for in the auction, and will fetch a high price. Legendary India batter Sunil Gavaskar has named two franchises that will be gunning for KL Rahul.
Sunil Gavaskar Picks 2 Franchises Who Should Go For KL Rahul In IPL 2025 Auction
In an interaction with Star Sports, Sunil Gavaskar said that Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) will be the two franchises that will go for KL Rahul in the IPL 2025 auction. He feels even Sunrisers Hyderabad might go for Rahul as well.
However, he feels that KL Rahul will be included towards joining RCB, given Bengaluru is his hometown.
“I do believe that the two south franchises, Bengaluru as well as Chennai, will go for KL Rahul. Maybe even Hyderabad will go, but Bangalore is of course KL Rahul’s hometown. So clearly I think he will be enthused, he will be encouraged, he will want to play in front of his home crowd. So Bengaluru might go for KL Rahul,” he said.