Rahul didn’t deserve this

Screengrab of LSG’s owner Sanjiv Goenka in animated conversation with KL Rahul

Muddled selection and poor planning are the root causes of Lucknow Super Giants' cascading performance in the ongoing IPL. However, placed sixth in the table with 12 points from a dozen games, they are in a much better position than star-studded teams like Mumbai Indians and RCB and still have an outside chance of making the Playoffs.

Then why this sudden scrutiny of LSG's plight with two matches remaining? There are two reasons for it. One, the humiliating 10-wicket defeat suffered at the hands of SRH in Hyderabad on Wednesday night, and two, the chiding their skipper KL Rahul got from the LSG owner Sanjiv Goenka in full public view after the match. Was it right for the LSG owner to lash out at the skipper in a manner that will be debated threadbare all around? Without a doubt, the team's top brass has the right to perform a post-mortem on each player, especially on the captain; but surely not in front of live cameras. With LSG still to play DC and MI, what kind of effect the public lashing of their captain will have on the team, only time will tell.

KL Rahul

Fringe players not backed

But what went awry for LSG match after match? The biggest factor could be a lack of confidence in the fringe players. As many as 22 players have played in the 12 matches so far, but West Indies all-rounder Kyle Mayers who was quite impressive last season, has yet to play a single game. Nine players have played three or fewer matches, most of them dumped unceremoniously by the team management and replaced by other greenhorns.

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This selection muddle has affected continuity and performance on the field. The classic example was left-arm spinner Manimaran Siddharth, who played in three games initially and despite being quite impressive in the Powerplays, was dumped. Then, in the last game against SRH, off-spinner Krishnappa Gowtham was brought in out of the blue for the first time and was taken to the cleaners in his two overs. In between, former India leg-spinner Amit Mishra came in for one game as an Impact Player but without success. West Indies pace bowling sensation Shamar Joseph had a poor debut against KKR at the Eden Gardens and was dumped thereafter. Similarly, Under-19 World Cup hero, Arshin Kulkarni was pitched in as an Impact Player, opening the batting in two games without success. He was also shown the door.

Injuries to blame too

Of course, injuries are also to blame for the chaos in the selection, be it to fast bowler Mayank Yadav, Mohsin Khan or opener Quinton de Kock. But there is no doubt that the planning and captaincy have left much to be desired. Rahul has time and again been injudicious in bowling preferences, the classic example being Wednesday's SRH match in which he did not use in-form Marcus Stoinis and Krunal Pandya even when others were leaking over 15 runs per over. Soon, he and his bowlers ran out of ideas and allowed Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma to dictate terms and finish off the match with over 10 overs and 10 wickets to spare.

In T20 cricket there is little time for the captain to brood and the game can slip away in a matter of a few deliveries as we saw in the Hyderabad match. Life is difficult for a captain in a pressure situation and his thinking can get muddled, leading to illogical decisions. Rahul was a clueless commander leading an equally clueless bowling unit against SRH, but surely he did not deserve the public rundown he got after the match.

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Lucknow Super Giant's ranking on the table