Lucknow Team’s Performance in Tata IPL 2025
2
Matches
1
Won
1
Lost
50
Win %
Expected Playing XI and Impact Sub
Mitch Marsh, Yuvraj Chaudhary, Ayush Badoni, Rishabh Pant ©, Nicholas Pooran, David Miller, Abdul Samad, Shahbaz Ahmed, Ravi Bishnoi, Avesh Khan, Akash Deep and M. Siddarth
Top Fantasy Picks from the Team
Rishabh Pant – Having warmed the bench for Team India in Champions Trophy, Pant must be itching to go out there and get some runs under his belt. Moreover, since he is the most expensive player of the auctions, Pant would love to repay that faith to the management by winning the trophy in TATA IPL 2025.
Nicholas Pooran – The left-hander is one of the cleanest strikers of the ball going around and has been in terrific form in franchise leagues across the world. Having scored close to 500 runs last season, he will be confident of performing in these conditions and making a big impact in the middle order.
Mitchell Marsh – The right-hander battled poor form in the recently concluded home series against India but it would be foolish to write him off, especially when he’s batting at the top of the order. The ‘Bison’ as they call him can be quite dangerous.
Ravi Bishnoi – Bishnoi’s success with the franchise in the past three years prompted them to retain him ahead of TATA IPL 2025.
David Miller – Miller is not only one of the best finishers going around but also is a terrific player of spin whose greatest ability as a batter is to know when to attack and when to play with caution. His experience will benefit Lucknow a lot in TATA IPL 2025.
Lucknow’s Schedule for TATA IPL 2025
SWOT Analysis of Lucknow
While the team made a big decision to move on from KL Rahul as captain, their new captain, Rishabh Pant, is yet to taste success with leadership. Moreover, Pant and Langer are very different personalities as well, so it would be interesting to see how the team manages to perform under these two.
Strengths – The team’s middle-order looks packed with power hitting left-handers. A batting lineup that has Rishabh Pant followed by Nicholas Pooran followed by David Miller will surely be feared by opposition bowlers. These three are backed up by names like Abdul Samad and Shahbaz Ahmed, and that could mean lots of big hitting in death overs for the team.
Weaknesses – The team’s punt on Mayank Yadav looks a little risky as questions hover over the bowler’s availability owing to injuries. Moreover, the team didn’t pick a regular opener in the auctions. Mitchell Marsh is likely to open but it remains unclear who will be his opening partner in the first XI. While Aiden Markram has only batted in the middle order in the past, Matthew Breetzke is yet to make his debut in the league.
The team’s pace attack is also made up of Indian names who are yet to set the league on fire. While Mohsin Khan, Avesh Khan and Akash Deep have had their moments, they are yet to establish themselves as reliable bowlers. In the spin department too, there seems to be a lot of reliance on Ravi Bishnoi.
Lucknow Team in TATA IPL 2025
One of the two new teams added ahead of the league’s 2022 edition, Lucknow have had an interesting trajectory till now. Under KL Rahul, they surprised everyone in the first season when they put up a terrific show in the league stages and finished second. They, however, got knocked out in the playoffs and experienced another playoff exit in 2023. This led to the team parting ways with their coach Andy Flower and mentor Gautam Gambhir ahead of the 2024 season where their showing was even worse as they failed to make it to the playoffs after finishing at the 7th place despite 7 wins. The season also saw a public bust up between the team-owner Sanjeev Goenka and the skipper KL Rahul whose batting came under intense scrutiny after yet another underwhelming season with the bat. Ahead of the auctions, the team decided to move on from Rahul and bought Rishabh Pant by paying a record 27 Crore at the auctions. The team’s retention picks raised some eyebrows as the team decided to pay a big sum of money to retain the services of fast bowler Mayank Yadav. The pacer, however, looks unlikely to play in the initial few matches for the team.
The team announced Rishabh Pant as the captain ahead of the season and also added Zaheer Khan to the think tank after Gautam Gambhir left for Kolkata. Justin Langer remains the coach of the team despite their performance last year.
Brief History of Lucknow
Founded in 2021, the team is owned by the RPSG Group, led by Sanjiv Goenka, which secured the franchise rights with a record-breaking bid of ₹7,090 crore. The owners had earlier bought the Pune team that played two seasons in 2016 and 2017. The team plays its home matches at the BRSABV Ekana Cricket Stadium, which has a capacity of 50,100 spectators. The track has been found to be helpful to spinners.
The franchise announced its name in January 2022 after a public naming contest. The team played the first season wearing aqua blue jersey before moving on to a darker shade of blue. The team plays its matches in Kolkata wearing a jersey similar to that of the Football team owned by the same owners.
