Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) suffered a huge setback after their regular skipper KL Rahul announced that he will miss rest of 2023 season of Indian Premier League (IPL) after suffering a serious thigh injury during his team's IPL match against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) on Monday (May 1) at Lucknow's Ekana Stadium. Rahul will be undergoing surgery in his right thigh. His injury is also a big setback for team India as the wicketkeeper batter has also ruled himself out from India vs Australia World Test Championship (WTC) final against Australia, starting June 7 at The Oval. At present, Lucknow Super Giants are on second position in IPL 2023 Points Table with 5 wins, 4 losses. Now that Rahul is injured, their chances of reaching the playoffs are bleak.
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All-rounder Krunal Pandya will now lead Lucknow Super Giants in their remaining matches in IPL 2023. Notably, 31-year-old Karun Nair, KL Rahul's teammate in Karnataka state team, has been brought in as his replacement for the rest of season. Nair entered this year's auction with a base price of Rs. 50 lakh but remained unsold. Last year, Nair was part of Rajasthan Royals but could score mere 16 runs in three games. In 2021, he played for Kolkata Knight Riders but was benched the entire season.
Few months back, Nair had made a tweet days after he went unsold in IPL auction. He took to Twitter and wrote, 'Dear Cricket, Give Me Another Chance.'
Karun Nair made headlines in 2016 by scoring a triple century for India in Tests against England. He scored 303 runs in 381 balls against England at Chennai, making him only second batter after Virender Sehwag to score a triple century for India in Tests. In the same innings, KL Rahul was dismissed for 199. Even after scoring a record-breaking triple ton, Nair played only 6 Tests, 2 ODIs for India, with his last appearance in 2017.