Skipper KL Rahul has never been "plagued" by captaincy, said Lucknow Super Giants fielding coach Jonty Rhodes after the opener struck his first fifty of IPL 2023 on Saturday.

A prolific run-getter in the IPL, Rahul smashed 74 off 56 balls. However, that did not matter in the end as Lucknow lost the contest to Punjab Kings by two wickets.

Rahul had also captained the Punjab Kings and Rhodes was part of that support staff.

"The captain is someone who likes to lead from the front. He has always been a successful, dominating batter in all the IPLs. Captaincy isn't something that's ever plagued him.

"Many great batters when given captaincy don’t quite handle it. He's led from the front and I think it’s great to see that," Rhodes said at the post-match media conference.

The opener, however, struggled to get going this season, managing a high score of 35 before Saturday's knock. His ordinary strike rate also triggered debates.

"When the captain is scoring runs, the way that he plays he lays a really good platform for others to play around them.

"We always knew that he was just one knock away. He’s been batting in the nets superbly. He’s not the kind of player anybody worries about because we always know it’s literally one innings away."

Against Punjab, when all other LSG batters failed to make an impact, Rahul batted till the 19th over but Rhodes felt the skipper could have stayed around and provided the final flourish.

"I think he himself will be satisfied with the way the knock turned out to be, but possibly he could’ve batted deeper," he added.

Rahul too thought that they were a few runs short and that cost them the match.

"I think we were about 10 runs short towards the end. The dew came in and it seemed to help the batters a little bit more. We did not execute well with the ball," Rahul said.

"If a couple of batters get in, play good knocks, we can get to 180-190. Unfortunately, a few of the batters hit good shots but were caught just on the boundary line. On another day, we would have got those 10-15 runs extra that would have made the difference.

"We have 7-8 batters in our team... Some are not as powerful but have skill. It is about each player playing their part."

Written with inputs from PTI