Lucknow Super Giants were knocked out of the IPL playoffs race on Monday after the Sunrisers Hyderabad defeated them at Lucknow’s home ground, Ekana Stadium. LSG has lost 7 out of the 13 matches they have played this season and are in the 7th position. LSG’s reason for this poor show this season is their extensive injury list said Rishabh Pant the LSG Captain at the post match interview, Mohammad Kaif criticized his statement and said they should “Stop retaining” the injury prone players at the first place and said injuries cannot be a justified reason for a team’s poor performances.
Wrong Retention strategy by LSG?
LSG retained some big names ahead of last year’s mega auction, and apart from Nicholas Pooran and Ayush Badoni, it looked like it all went wrong for LSG. Ravi Bishnoi and Mayank Yadav were both retained for 11 crores each. Bishnoi had a lackluster season, and he was eventually dropped from the 11, whereas Mayank Yadav only played 3 games for the franchise and was ruled out of the tournament. The young pace gun has only played 6 matches in the last two seasons. Another player LSG retained was the young Mohsin Khan, due to him being uncapped, he was only retained for 4 crores, but the bowler was ruled out of the whole tournament this year due to injury. LSG can’t blame anyone for this, as they themselves were the decision makers, and that is the reason why Rishabh is facing criticism over his statement.
What did Rishabh say?
Rishabh Pant the man who was expected to be sold at a very high price in the auction was eventually brought by the Lucknow Super Giants for a big amount of 27 crores has only manged to score more than 27 runs once in this season and his average is of 12 which tells us how bad this season has been for the star Indian wicket keeper batsman. Rishabh’s form is also a reason for LSG’s poor outing this season. After the loss against SRH, Rishabh said
“Definitely it could have been one of our best seasons, but coming into the tournament we had a lot of gaps, injuries and as a team we decided not to talk about that, but it became difficult to fill those gaps for us”
“The way we planned the auction, if we had the same bowling…but this is cricket, sometimes things go your way and sometimes they don’t , we take pride in the way we played and take the positives from the season rather than the negative side.”
Mohammed Kaif criticized Rishabh’s statement
Ex Indian player Mohammed Kaif criticized Rishabh’s words and said
‘I would rather pay money to retain players who can play the full season. LSG’s entire bowling attack is injury prone. I’m not saying injuries don’t happen , but for players who are more susceptible to them, stop retaining them for big money. Instead pick them up at the auction.”
LSG have got a lot to figure out and they will have reassess their strategy and they will be looking to get some new players in the next mini auction because their current season is over now.
About the Author
Arpit Sharma is a sports writer and journalism student at Chandigarh University, with a strong interest in sports analysis and storytelling. His writing combines match insights with a fresh, fan-first perspective that brings the game to life.
Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Vygr's views.
With inputs from agencies
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