KL Rahul's 'politics' advise to Justin Langer regarding India's coaching likely to create controversy

KL Rahul might find himself in troubled waters yet again. The reason is his advice to his Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) coach Justin Langer on how challenging is the India head coach job. Rahul Dravid’s tenure at the helm is set to end with the conclusion of T20 World Cup at the end of June. BCCI has already sought applications for the post even as different names have already come up.

Several reports suggested that BCCI approached Ricky Ponting for the top job with the latter even confirming the same recently while speaking to the ICC. But BCCI Scretary Jay Shah has refuted all the allegations stating that the head coach will be finalised by a thorough process and that the board has not approached anyone so far. However, Langer’s revelation on why he is not taking up the job or even applying for the same has raised many eyebrows.

While speaking on BBC’s stumped podcast, Langer said, “I was talking to KL Rahul [the captain at Lucknow Super Giants, where Langer is the head coach] and he said, ‘You know, if you think there’s pressure and politics in an IPL team, multiply that by a thousand, [that’s] coaching India. That was a good bit of advice, I guess. It would be an awesome job, but not for me at the moment.”

The ‘pressure and politics in Indian team’ statement might not go down well with many in the BCCI and Langer clearly mentioning that KL Rahul told him the same might lead to cricketer finding himself in trouble. Rahul has courted controversy before for making misogynistic comments alongside Hardik Pandya and was served show-cause notice from the BCCI. In fact, they were sent back home from the middle of Australia tour.