Sanjiv Goenka. the owner of the Lucknow Super Giants, and mentor of the franchise, Gautam Gambhir, recently gifted a special bat, the first of the franchise, to Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister Yogi Adityanath when the trio met a few days after the IPL 2022 mega-auction.
The Lucknow franchise, which was bought by the RP Sanjiv Goenka Group for INR 7090 crore last year, is set to make its debut in the league. Along with Lucknow, Gujrat Titans, bought by CVC Capital Partners for INR 5625 crore, is the other new franchise in the tournament.
Last weekend, LSG were involved in the IPL 2022 mega-auction and made some big-name buys, including Quinton de Kock, Avesh Khan, Mark Wood, Jason Holder, Krunal Pandya, and Deepak Hooda. They had earlier signed opener KL Rahul as their captain and had also picked Marcus Stoinis and Ravi Bishnoi before the mega-auction.
On Friday, the LSG social media account thanked Yogi Adityanath for his support, sharing a photo of UP’s Chief Minister being presented with LSG’s first bat by Goenka and Gambhir.
“The first bat of the #LucknowSuperGiants presented to the Honorable Chief Minister, @myogiadityanath. Grateful to receive his support!” LSG captioned the post.
The first bat of the #LucknowSuperGiants presented to the Honorable Chief Minister, @myogiadityanath. Grateful to receive his support! ? pic.twitter.com/SDmRLMa7Sw
— Lucknow Super Giants (@LucknowIPL) February 18, 2022
At the mega-auction, LSG bought 18 players, taking their squad total to 21. They spent 10 crore for uncapped speedster Avesh Khan, who was brilliant for the Delhi Capitals last season and has been given a call-up to India’s squads in the past year.
Lucknow also acquired a spate of all-rounders, the marquee name among those is Jason Holder, for 8.75 crore. Their fast bowling stocks are strong with Mark Wood and Dushmantha Chameera, Avesh Khan and Ankit Rajpoot. Quinton de Kock, Manish Pandey, Evin Lewis are other top-order batters that Lucknow roped in.
Lucknow squad: KL Rahul (c), Marcus Stoinis, Ravi Bishnoi, Quinton de Kock, Deepak Hooda, Manish Pandey, Krunal Pandya, Jason Holder, Mark Wood, Avesh Khan, Ankit Rajput, K Gowtham, Dushmanta Chameera, Shahbaz Nadeem, Manan Vohra, Mohsin Khan, Ayush Badoni, Karan Sharma, Evin Lewis, Mayank Yadav, Kyle Mayers.
The IPL 2022 is set to comment in the last week of March. All the matches are likely to take place in the multiple stadiums of Mumbai and Pune.
