Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) owner Sanjeev Goenka seemingly took a brutal dig at KL Rahul after not retaining latter for the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 season.
Notably, Rahul’s name didn’t feature in the list of retained players despite him leading the franchise since its inception in 2022.
LSG retained a total of five players namely Nicholas Pooran (INR 21 Crore), Ravi Bishnoi (INR 11 Crore), Mayank Yadav (INR 11 Crore), Mohsin Khan (INR 4 Crore) and Ayush Badoni (INR 4 Crore).
After releasing the list, Goenka revealed their mindset behind the retentions and said that mentor Zaheer Khan and head coach Justin Langer had a long discussion and finalize the retentions.
The franchise owner also said that they wanted to keep the players who put the team first ahead of their personal goals and milestones. This statement of Goenka is being construed as a dig at KL Rahul, who faced severe backlash for his below-par strike rate in the last few seasons.
“It was a process that Zaheer Khan, Justin Langer and the analyst and the CEO engaged in for a while and we all had a joint discussion. And that discussion wasn’t too long, I mean we had a simple mindset to go in with the players who have a mindset to win, who put the team before their personal goals and personal aspirations. We wanted to retain as much of our core as we could within the available purse,” Goenka said in a video message that was played on Star Sports.
Further speaking ahead, Goenka revealed the reason behind all of their retentions, citing that they wanted to keep their strong bowling unit intact.
“We had a strong bowling unit and that’s why went with three bowlers from the previous seasons, all Indians. Pooran was a no brainer for everyone so that’s clear and Ayush has done well for us at number six and number seven. He’s an uncapped Indian so that was something, we dicussed, debated and decided afterwards,” he remarked.
LSG spent a total of INR 51 crore on their five retentions. The Super Giants now have INR 69 crore left in their kitty for the grand auction, where they can use the RTM card to get a player back into their squad.
