“KL Rahul was a huge loss,” says Tom Moody of LSG’s loss in the IPL 2023.

Tom Moody, a former Australian cricketer, said that the Lucknow Super Giants missed captain KL Rahul’s consistency in the batting team. The IPL 2023 season for LSG was over when they lost to the Mumbai Indians by 81 runs in the eliminator on May 24 in Chennai. KL Rahul season was cut short because he hurt his thigh while playing catch against the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) on May 1 at Lucknow’s Ekana Stadium. In nine games this season, Rahul made 274 runs, with an average of 34.25 and a strike rate of 113.22.

The LSG captain is also out of the World Test Championship final, which starts on June 7 at London’s Oval. But even though he wasn’t there, Krunal Pandya, the vice captain of LSG, took charge and led the team to third place in the IPL 2023 points table.

With KL Rahul in that opening order, things are different: Tom Moody

“I think LSG really missed out on KL Rahul. This is their second time in the playoffs, which is a huge accomplishment for a new team. Even though KL Rahul hurt himself, you can almost be sure that he would have scored at least three half-centuries in the rest of the games, and that was what was missing, Moodly told ESPNcricinfo.

“KL Rahul in that batting order is a totally different story. I thought he was a big loss, just because he was a steady guy at the top of the team. Yes, he gets criticized sometimes for not hitting as often as we all think he should, but there are also times when he does. “What was missing was the number of runs,” he said.

Since they began last year, the Lucknow Super Giants have been very steady. In 2022, Rahul led the team to a third-place finish on the points table. In the Eliminator, though, they lost to RCB.