Lucknow Super Giants captain KL Rahul has created an all-time record in the Indian Premier League during his side's clash against Rajasthan Royals. Rahul continues his good run with another notable knock in the tournament.
Rahul has become the fifth player to score 4000 runs as an opener in the IPL and is now the fastest opener to reach the elusive milestone. The 32-year-old needed 35 runs to reach the feat and he did so in the early half of the first innings against RR. Rahul took only 94 innings to get to 4000 runs as an opener.
Players with over 4000 runs in IPL as opener:
6362 - Shikhar Dhawan
5909 - David Warner
4480 - Chris Gayle
4041 - Virat Kohli
4010 - KL Rahul
LSG were asked to bat first after RR won the toss. "We will bowl first. Looks like a decent wicket to bowl, but no guarantees. This season has been a bit different, some extra days in between games, that gives us time to rest and recover. We're playing the same team. IPL has been completely different, it's normal to get carried away looking at other teams, but the talk in our camp is to stay with the flow, we have been playing some good cricket and we need to continue doing so. I don't need to talk to him, he's been a top professional and has a big role in our plans (on Ravi Ashwin)," Sanju Samson said at the toss.
"The wicket is good, there's not much dew in Lucknow and the wicket will play well for the entire 40 overs. We'll need to play some good cricket. It's nice to get past 200, every team would like to do so, but the dimensions of this ground favours the bowlers a bit more and we've enjoyed it. No changes for us. Every player goes through a bit of time like that when you can't get runs ( asked about Padikkal's form). He looks good in the nets and he'll have to stay positive, you saw last night when Jonny came back after getting dropped and then getting a hundred," KL Rahul said at the toss.
LSG's Playing XI:
Quinton de Kock, KL Rahul (c & wk), Marcus Stoinis, Deepak Hooda, Nicholas Pooran, Ayush Badoni, Krunal Pandya, Matt Henry, Ravi Bishnoi, Mohsin Khan, Yash Thakur
RR's Playing XI:
Yashasvi Jaiswal, Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson (c & wk), Rovman Powell, Shimron Hetmyer, Dhruv Jurel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Trent Boult, Avesh Khan, Sandeep Sharma, Yuzvendra Chahal
