Former Indian opener Gautam Gambhir has expressed, he is very keen to watch KL Rahul in IPL 2020. Rahul was appointed as the KXIP captain after former skipper Ravichandran Ashwin was let go from the team. The 13th edition of the IPL is set to begin from September 19 till November 10, a total 53-day campaign will see all the eight teams play in UAE. The venue this time is UAE and matches will be played in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah
KXIP’s squad have already reached the venue and started training, players from Australia and England will be joining on 17th of September after their bilateral series.
Gautam Gambhir on KL Rahul:
Gambhir wants to see how KL Rahul performs in the IPL this season with additional responsibility on his shoulders. He says KL Rahul is an outstanding white-ball cricketer. KL Rahul has the most runs combined in the last two IPL season.
“I would want to genuinely watch what KL Rahul does in this IPL. Because according to me KL Rahul is a fantastic T20 cricketer, probably not Test cricket, but definitely T20 and white-ball cricketer,” Gautam Gambhir said.
We will have to see if he relishes the captaincy: Gautam Gambhir on KL Rahul
The former Indian cricketers say it is to be seen if KL Rahul enjoys the captaincy of KXIP which is new to him and flourish with the team, or the added pressure pulls him down. Gambhir mentioned the fact that there have been many promising players whose careers have taken a turn when they were handed the captaincy for some in a positive direction while for some in a negative direction.
“This time he has got the captaincy. We will have to see if he relishes the captaincy because there have been a lot of promising players who have relished captaincy and there have been many other promising players who have been pulled down by the pressures of captaincy,” he added.
KXIP will look to seal their first IPL title this year with a well-balanced team they have. KXIP started both 2018 and 2019 campaigns strong but lost track in the later stages and failed to book a place in the playoffs. The team has already hit the training ground after finishing the mandatory quarantine.