Lucknow Super Veteran (LSG) wicket-keeper Better Rishabh Pant cited the team’s broad injury list as the biggest reason behind the poor show of the side in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 campaign. After the LSG finished with the playoff race, Pants said the fact that the team did not serve their primary fast bowlers – Mayank Yadav and Mohsin Khan – led their weak show this year. However, former India cricketer Mohammad Kaif reacted a bluntly to the LSG management to ‘excuses’, stating that the owners should not have retained such hurt-hit players.
Last year ahead of the IPL mega auction, LSG retained Nicholas Goran (Rs 21 crore), Ravi Bishnoi (Rs 11 crore), Mayank Yadav (Rs 11 crore), Mohsin Khan (Rs 4 crore), and Ayush Badoni (Rs 4 crore). Many, Mayank barely played 2-3 games, while Mohsin could not attend a single game this year.
“I will pay money to maintain the players that can play throughout the season. LSG’s entire bowling attack is injured. I am not saying that there are no injuries, but for those players who are more susceptible to them, stop maintaining them for big money. Instead, raise them in the auction,” Kaif said after the match.
Even the sky deep, one of the pacers LSG purchased in auction was not available for the entire season. At the end of the match against SRH on Monday, Pant cited Voids left by the absence of these players as the team’s reason behind the failure to fulfill its ability.
“Certainly it could have been one of our best seasons, but in the tournament, we have a lot of gaps, injuries, s and a team as a team we decided not to talk about it, but it became difficult for us to fill those gaps,” Pants said after the game.
He said, “The way we had planned the auction, if we had the same bowling … but it is cricket, sometimes things go in your way and sometimes they do not, we are proud of the way we played and take positivity from the season instead of the negative side,” he said.
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