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Lucknow Super Giants have settled on their new captain and franchise owner Sanjiv Goenka says the announcement will be made soon.
LSG mentor Zaheer Khan (left) along with franchise owner Sanjiv Goenka during the IPL auction in Jeddah. (BCCI Photo)
Lucknow Super Giants parted ways with KL Rahul after enduring a forgettable IPL 2024. This was despite Rahul guiding them into the playoffs two seasons in a row. LSG owner Sanjiv Goenka then raised eyebrows with his remark that they want players who put team ahead of individual goals as he explained the reasons behind them retaining the likes of Nicholas Pooran, Ravi Bishnoi, Mayank Yadav, Ayush Badoni and Mohsin Khan.
In the lead up to the mega auction, LSG hit the headlines by not retaining Rahul. At the auction, they again made waves by placing a winning bid of Rs 27 crore to buy Rishabh Pant and thus making him the most expensive buy in IPL auction history.
Focus is now on which player will be handed the LSG captaincy for the next season. And Goenka reveals that a call has already been taken.
“People get surprised easily. I don’t think you get surprised easily. It’s been decided. But we will announce in the next few days. We have four leaders in our team – Rishabh, Pooran, Markram and Mitch Marsh,” Goenka told former India cricketer Aakash Chopra.
“So, it becomes a very strong leadership pool of intellect, thought and strategy. They are all people who can go for the mindset to win. Rishabh has that hunger, and passion that he wants to win, and do something and show it. So, the team is good and we are happy,” he added.
Goenka says LSG had a “very good” auction and that they focused on building a strong middle order.
“Our internal feeling is that our auction was very good. Our focus was that our middle order and finishing should be very strong. So, that number three to eight are very strong. Another thing we wanted was to go with an Indian pace attack, instead of international pace, and we went with explosive international batters. So, now we have got a combination of the two,” Goenka said.
Another challenge before LSG will be to decide on a suitable opening pair given they have multiple quality options in Pant, Mitchell Marsh and Aiden Markram.
Goenka says a final call will be taken by coach Justin Langer, mentor Zaheer Khan and the new captain. “Those (opening batters) are calls that frankly are beyond my capability and competence. Zak has a thought process and I think he has already spoken to the captain a couple of times, and I think Zak, Langer and the captain will be meeting soon together, and all three of them will have a conversation and they will take a call. Whatever their call is, I will support it 100 per cent,” he said.
