Ahead of the IPL 2025 auction, KL Rahul was released by Lucknow Super Giants where he captained the team for three seasons and also led them to the playoffs in 2022 and 2023 editions of the league. In the last edition of the tournament, LSG finished on the seventh place, winning seven of fourteen matches. After releasing KL Rahul, LSG owner Sanjiv Goenka explained the reason by saying that team wanted to retain the players who had the mindset to win. Recently, in an interview with Star Sports, KL Rahul spoke about it and said he wanted to play with freedom.
"No, I mean, I think the decision was made already and I don't know what the comments are, but they must have come after the announcement. I just felt like I wanted to start fresh, I wanted to explore my options and I wanted to go and play where I could find some freedom and the team atmosphere would be something much more balanced,” Rahul told Star Sports in an interview
"The pressure is already there in the IPL, it's so high. You see teams like Gujarat [Titans] and CSK [Chennai Super Kings] and all of these teams, and you see when they win or lose, they seem really balanced and the dressing room is really calm. That's something that's very important for me as a player. I feel like if that happens, it gives all the players the best chance to perform."
During the IPL 2024 season, one incident that garnered the most attention was the heated chat between KL Rahul and LSG owner Sanjiv Goenka post LSG’s defeat to SRH as this was the match LSG had to win to secure their chances for playoffs.
"There's always ups and downs. You need to be able to hold your nerves and be able to keep and you need to be able to keep putting up good performances after good performances. All the travel, all the drama outside, the pressure - all of it is there every year. But somehow this season, it felt like there was a lot more and somehow I think that affected the team and we couldn't put in performances when it really mattered,” he said.