IPL 2025: LSG Has Chosen a New Captain, Announcement Coming Soon, States Goenka
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New Delhi, Dec 2 (NationPress) Sanjiv Goenka, the proprietor of the IPL team Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), disclosed that the franchise has finalized its new captain and will make the announcement shortly as the IPL 2025 season approaches.
In the previous IPL 2022-24 cycle, KL Rahul served as the captain for LSG, with Krunal Pandya stepping in when Rahul was sidelined during the latter part of IPL 2023. However, the franchise opted not to retain either player before the mega auction held in Jeddah last month.
With Rahul now joining Delhi Capitals and Krunal moving to Royal Challengers Bengaluru, LSG has several leadership candidates including former Delhi Capitals captain Rishabh Pant, current T20I captains for Australia and South Africa, Mitchell Marsh and Aiden Markram, as well as Nicholas Pooran, who previously captained the West Indies.
“People tend to get easily surprised. I don't think you are easily surprised. The decision has been made. We will announce it in the coming days. We have four leaders on our roster - Rishabh, Pooran, Markram, and Mitch Marsh.
“This creates a robust leadership pool filled with intellect, strategy, and vision. All of them possess the winning mentality. Rishabh embodies the hunger and passion to achieve victory and to make a statement. The team is strong, and we are pleased,” added Goenka in a video shared on Aakash Chopra's YouTube channel on Monday.
LSG retained Pooran for Rs 21 crore, along with Mayank Yadav and Ravi Bishnoi (each at Rs 11 crore), and uncapped players Ayush Badoni and Mohsin Khan for Rs 4 crore each. During the mega auction, they acquired Pant for a record Rs 27 crore, marking him as the most expensive signing in IPL history.
“We feel our auction strategy was quite successful. Our goal was to strengthen our middle order and finishing capabilities. We aimed for a formidable lineup from numbers three to eight. Additionally, we wanted to focus on an Indian pace attack instead of relying on international players, while also bringing in dynamic international batsmen. We have now achieved a balanced combination,” Goenka elaborated.
He concluded by mentioning that the decision on who will open the batting among Markram, Marsh, and Pant will be made by the new captain, coach Justin Langer, and mentor Zaheer Khan. “We agreed that enhancing our middle order and maintaining an Indian core was essential. However, auctions sometimes don't unfold as we envision. We made a significant bid for Jos Buttler but fell just short by one or two bid amounts. Zak (Zaheer Khan), JL (Justin Langer), and the captain will finalize this decision.”
“Those decisions are beyond my expertise. Zak has a solid approach and has already had discussions with the captain a few times. I believe Zak, Langer, and the captain will be meeting soon to deliberate, and their collective decision will be supported by me completely.”
