Nicholas Pooran at 3, KL Rahul at 4! Sunil Gavaskar's crucial suggestion to LSG ahead of IPL 2024

Former Indian cricketer turned pundit and expert analyst Sunil Gavaskar has come up with a suggestion for the batting order of KL Rahul-led Lucknow Super Giants in the upcoming IPL 2024 edition. Gavaskar feels that LSG’s batting order is set, stating that West Indies wicket-keeper batsman Nicholas Pooran will come in at number 3 while skipper KL Rahul will be appearing at number 4.

In all of their 2 seasons in the IPL, the Lucknow Super Giants have finished in the top 4 in the points table and have secured their qualification for the playoffs. However, KL Rahul’s side haven’t been able to beat their opposition during the eliminator round, which is played by the 3rd and 4th placed team in the table following the conclusion of the league stages.

In 2022, LSG were defeated by the Royal Challengers Bangalore and last year it were the Mumbai Indians who defeated them in the Eliminator 1 fixture. The North Indian outfit have remained almost unplayable throughout the league stages but they have lacked composure when it comes to the most important matches of the season.

In order to get over the playoffs woes, LSG owner Sanjiv Goenka went all the way to London in order to have a meeting with former Australia’s 2021 T20 World Cup winning coach Justin Langer to take over as the head coach of Lucknow from next season and succeed Andy Flower from that role.

The deal materialized and Langer joined the LSG management to sit down at the auction table in Dubai’s Coca-Cola Arena to compose the squad structure of the team. They made 6 acquisitions of Shivam Mavi (6.40 crore), Arshin Kulkarni (20 lakh), Manimaran Siddharth (2.40 crore), David Willey (2 crore), Ashton Turner (1 crore) and Mohd Arshad Khan (20 lakh).

LSG heavily revolves around captain KL Rahul who is expected to be a part of the Indian team for their 3rd of a 5-match Test series against England at Rajkot from February 15 onwards. He is expected to fill in for Virat Kohli at number 4 like he did in the 1st Test and Sunil Gavaskar feels that should be his batting position in the IPL as well.

“They are a good team. They have been a team which has somehow always played above their potential. If they continue to do that, they will be in the periphery of the top four all the time. KL Rahul might bat at No. 4, Nicholas Pooran can bat at No. 3,” Sunil Gavaskar said via Star Sports.

Sunil Gavaskar Asks KL Rahul And Justin Langer To Let Nicholas Pooran Arrive At Number 3

Gavaskar made a request to KL Rahul and Justin Langer to let the explosive left-hand batter Nicholas Pooran bat at number 3 instead of sending him further down the order as he can be very destructive if given enough amount of balls to play.

“Nicholas Pooran, the more overs that he gets, the more destructive he can be. I saw in the Major League Cricket, he was just sensational. So clearly I think Pooran needs to get a few more overs,” Gavaskar concluded.