LSG Owner Sanjeev Goenka Reveals How He Bagged Rishabh Pant, Yuzvendra Chahal At The IPL 2025 Mega Auction

Rishabh Pant and Yuzvendra Chahal were two of LSG's most expensive buys in the IPL 2025 auction. While Pant ended up being the most expensive IPL player ever at 27 crores, Chahal joined the side at 18 crores.

In Pant and Chahal, Lucknow Super Giants have two players who will be playing almost every IPL game in 2025 barring any injury concerns. Rishabh Pant was also named the captain of the side by the team owner recently.

Both are among the premier Indian cricketers in recent times. Unfortunately, Yuzvendra Chahal who was part of India's T20 World Cup 2024 has fallen out of favour again. Meanwhile, Pant is very much central to playing all three formats since his return to international cricket. His personal life has been unstable in recent times adding to his misery of being out of the team.

Rishabh Was Second, Then Yuzi: LSG Owner Sanjeev Goenka

In a conversation with Aakash Chopra, Sanjeev Goenka gave an insight into what went into roping in a strong squad at the auction. He also spoke about how he managed to buy Pant and Chahal.

"You have a plan A, you have a plan B, and you have a plan C. Rishabh was fixed in all our plans - A, B and C. The first plan was to go with Rishabh and Jos. So these were the two key players. We didn't succeed in getting Jos. The second was Rishabh, then Yuzi. We didn't succeed," he responded.

He further explained how they managed to buy an all-India team attack and solid middle-order. Akash Deep and Avesh Khan are expected to lead the Lucknow attack. They also managed to buy Shamar Joseph to add pace to the attack. Mayank Yadav and Mohsin Khan are the other pacers as well.

"The third thing was that we will go with an all-Indian pace attack and a solid middle order. So we had to fall back on our third plan. We are happy with the outcome and the result, of course, but you have to think on your feet and it helps that you have people like Zak (Zaheer Khan) with you at that moment, and that experience and wisdom become very useful," Goenka said.

Lucknow Super Giants IPL 2025 Squad

Nicholas Pooran, Ravi Bishnoi, Mayank Yadav, Mohsin Khan, Ayush Badoni, Rishabh Pant, David Miller, Aiden Markram, Mitchell Marsh, Avesh Khan, Abdul Samad, Aryan Juyal, Akash Deep, Himmat Singh, M. Siddharth, Digvesh Singh, Shahbaz Ahmed, Akash Singh, Shamar Joseph, Prince Yadav, Yuvraj Chaudhary, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Arshin Kulkarni, Matthew Breetzke.