LSG vs RR IPL 2022: KL Rahul falls for first-ball duck in front of girlfriend Athiya Shetty and her father Suniel Shetty

Social media was immediately excited to see KL Rahul's girlfriend Athiya cheering from him from the stands but the LSG skipper disappointed with the bat scoring a first-ball duck against RR.

LSG skipper KL Rahul with Athiya Shetty. (Source: Twitter)

Lucknow Super Giants skipper KL Rahul didn’t have a happy outing in front of his girlfriend Athiya Shetty, her father and Bollywood star Suniel Shetty and her friends in the IPL 2022 match against the Rajasthan Royals on Sunday (April 10). Rahul fell for a golden duck as his side lost by three runs at the Wankhede Stadium in the first match that actress Athiya Shetty attended this season.

Social media was immediately excited to see KL Rahul's girlfriend Athiya cheering from him from the stands. As soon as the cameramen caught the Bollywood stars in attendance, they got Twitterati talking about the duo's chemistry.

Athiya also posted a couple of Instagram stories from the RR vs LSG IPL 2022 match. Check Athiya Shetty’s Instagram stories here…

Despite facing defeat by three runs in a close match against Rajasthan Royals in the ongoing IPL 2022, Lucknow Super Giants skipper KL Rahul said ‘one bad game won’t change things’ and they will only learn from it.

While Athiya was seen in a blue shirt, her father Suniel and some of her friends sported the LSG jersey.

Athiya Shetty and her family is here to cheers for KLR & team! #KLRahul #IPL #Cricket #LSGvRR #SunielShetty #athiyashetty #AyushBadoni #LucknowSuperGiants pic.twitter.com/ScjdK2bwoA — klrahul_my_heart (@PoojaGusai8) April 10, 2022

Shimron Hetmyer’s unbeaten 59 and a four-wicket haul from Yuzvendra Chahal helped Rajasthan Royals beat Lucknow Super Giants by three runs at the Wankhede Stadium. “I didn’t see it (the ball that got him from Boult), if I did I could have done something about it. Have to give it to him. Was a good ball. We have a good team, and have enough options with bat and ball. Even when we were 20-odd for three, we knew we had a chance. Obviously, today we needed one good partnership which we never got going,” said Rahul in a post-match presentation.

LSG skipper praised Marcus Stoinis for his excellent innings and said his first game of the season will give him the confidence to do better in the next match. Stoinis smashed 38 not out in just 17 runs. “At the end, it was excellent from Stoinis to get it close and to do it in his first game of the season will give him confidence. It was always a plan (to hold Stoinis back), we know how dangerous he can be in the last five overs. As I said, we have a lot of all-rounders, so many options and so we could shuffle the batting order a bit. We like to be a bit unpredictable a bit,” he added.

“These kinds of totals can be a bit tricky at times, plan was to throw the bowlers off their lengths a bit but didn’t happen. But we’re a side that would continue to try being unpredictable in the coming games too. We couldn’t execute our plans at the end, the yorkers and other plans. If you miss your plans, batters these days will put you in trouble. We’ll try to work harder and handle the pressure better. One bad game won`t change things, will be a good learning for us,” he said.

With 15 runs to win off the last over RR’s Kuldeep Sen bowled three dot balls to Stoinis as Lucknow fell short by three runs and Rajasthan registered their third win in four matches to reach the top of the points table.

(with ANI inputs)