Punjab Kings head coach Anil Kumble revealed the reason why his franchise didn’t retain premier batter, KL Rahul, for the IPL 2022. 

The eight existing IPL franchises on Tuesday (30th  November) revealed their retention list of players ahead of the IPL 2022 auction. 

Punjab Kings surprised many when they named their retentions for the IPL 15. KL Rahul’s name not being on the list came as a big surprise as the Punjab-based team only retained two players in Mayank Agarwal and Arshdeep Singh.

Read Also: Chennai Super Kings (CSK) - list of retained players

Notably, days before announcing the retention lists many media reports suggested that KL Rahul wants to leave Punjab Kings as he wants to go to auction and lead some other team. 

After announcing the retention list, PBKS Director of Cricket Operations Anil Kumble revealed that the franchise wanted to retain KL Rahul and that was the main reason they made him skipper two years back. He further cited the reason for not retaining the outgoing skipper. 

"Obviously we wanted to retain him, that is one of the reasons we chose him as captain two years back. But he decided to go into the auction. We respect that, we honor his decision. It's the player's prerogative,” Anil Kumble said on Star Sports. 

As per some reports KL Rahul is likely to lead the Lucknow-based franchise in the IPL 2022 as they have offered him the whopping price of INR 20 Crores. The two new IPL teams can pick a maximum of three unretained players. 

KL Rahul has been the prolific run-getter for Punjab Kings. The right-handed batter joined the franchise in 2018 and set the stage on fire in his very first innings for the team by smashing the fastest half-century in the history of IPL. 

He scored 659 runs in his debut season for Punjab Kings in IPL 2018 and then followed it with the 593, 670, and 626 runs in the next three editions of the marquee tournament. Rahul also captained the franchise in IPL 2020 and IPL 2021 but failed to take his team to the glory as they didn't qualify for the playoffs in both editions. 

(Star Sports inputs)