If KL Rahul leads Lucknow Super Giants to their maiden IPL title, he will automatically be rewarded with a spot in the Indian team for the T20 World Cup, reckons head coach Justin Langer, who wants his team’s national hopefuls to “concentrate” on doing well for the franchise first. Rahul, who is coming back from a quadriceps injury and is not expected to keep wickets at the beginning of the IPL, is still not a certainty in the Indian T20 squad and only a good IPL with both the bat and gloves can seal the deal for him.
Asked how he would balance his skipper’s personal ambition with the team’s interests, Langer said it isn’t all that complicated.
“If the team does well, everyone gets rewarded. If KL can captain LSG to IPL title, that means he would have captained well, batted well and kept wickets well,” Langer replied to a PTI query during a season-opening media interaction on Wednesday.
Apart from Rahul, the other serious T20 World Cup contender from LSG is leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi.
“The message for players, like KL or Bishi (Bishnoi) will be that more they concentrate on playing well for LSG, their chances (of WT20 call-up) will increase.” Rahul is expected to link up with the team on Wednesday evening due to a flight delay but the former Australian opener didn’t say a word about when the star player will start keeping.
“He has followed all the ‘Return To Play’ protocols and he has been hitting a lot of balls.”
For Langer, coaching an IPL team is quite similar to coaching an international team.
“It is only at domestic level that you get players for pre-season. At international level, players only assemble before competition phase. So it is pretty similar.”
Having guided Australia to a T20 World Cup title, Langer said that he knows the “blue-print of success” but it will be important to execute the plans.
“I have been sleeping well for the past two years after I left coaching Australia. Now I will have sleepless nights in fitting so much talent in just 11 slots,” he said referring to his forced break he had to take after leaving the Australia job for not getting a long-term contract following discontent among players.
