When the Lucknow Super Giants recruited their support staff under the leadership of IPL veteran coach Tom Moody and former Australia coach Justin Langer, it was anticipated that the team would at last transition from a gifted but inconsistent team to a legitimate title challenger.
Rather, the season was filled with poor choices, dubious pairings, and a club that never really seemed to grasp what its best starting lineup was.
It appeared like captain Rishabh Pant and head coach Langer were using distinct tactical playbooks for extended periods of the competition. The indecisiveness surrounding batting positions, the chopping and replacing of personnel, and the body language following losses all suggested a team in dire need of clarification.
Naturally, owner Sanjiv Goenka’s choice to pay Rs 27.50 crore for Pant remained the most talked-about topic. Even though Pant is still one of the biggest cricket brands in India and one of the most important match-winners in modern Indian cricket, the move unavoidably distorted the squad’s balance and possibly left obvious gaps elsewhere.
The lack of good foreign fast bowlers was the most glaring shortcoming. With the exception of South African Anrich Nortje, who only played once, LSG never really had a formidable foreign pace option that could turn games around in the middle or late overs. An inexperienced Indian bowling unit was left to bear the entire burden.
Mohammed Shami appeared to be effective only occasionally, while only Mohsin Khan (11 wickets) and Prince Yadav (16 wickets) consistently displayed glimpses of potential among domestic bowlers. Beyond that, the supporting actors had a terrible time.
Speedster Mayank Yadav played just four games following his surgery and failed to take a single wicket while scoring runs at an economy rate higher than 11. Akash Singh, a young left-arm pacer, was tidy in one match but was badly punished in the following one and never fully recovered.
Despite all of the difficulties, LSG continued to use combinations that left more questions than answers. Nicholas Pooran continued to have a long run despite several setbacks during the competition. Even though teams frequently support players who have won games, there comes a time when perseverance starts to resemble stubbornness.
The most intriguing part of LSG’s campaign was that there didn’t seem to be much reason to give peripheral guys opportunity once the squad was essentially eliminated from playoff contention. Naturally, this begs the question of why Moody and Langer never gave Arjun Tendulkar a single game.
Would he have performed worse than Akash Singh or even Avesh Khan, whose nearly ten-year IPL career hasn’t demonstrated much progress under pressure? Paradoxically, the LSG social media staff actively promoted a “Arjun Tendulkar yorker package” online, which attracted a lot of attention and interaction. However, why was he never deemed suitable for a real match scenario if those yorkers were truly effective enough for advertising campaigns?
Or was the well-known last name merely beneficial for digital reach and social media impressions? It’s difficult to ignore the irony. Tendulkar junior almost seems to be the opposite in a cricket culture where discussions about nepotism predominate—he is frequently selected by teams but is rarely trusted enough for a first XI opportunity.
It’s also unclear if Langer or Moody ever told the young player why Arjun couldn’t even be trusted with the new ball in a dead rubber while someone like Arshin Kulkarni, whose meticulous 17 off 24 balls exposed him as a total T20 misfit in that role, could still be promoted as an opener.
Ultimately, LSG’s season might be remembered for more than just defeats. It may be regarded as a campaign in which the management failed to establish a consistent cricketing identity.
