Picture Credit: BCCI/IPL
With the 18th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) set to get underway from Saturday, March 22, a recent report has made some shocking claims surrounding the newly-formed franchise, Lucknow Super Giants (LSG). However, the Rishabh Pant-led side is still under cloud over the participation of their pacer trio, including Mayank Yadav, Avesh Khan and Mohsin Khan, but a latest report has left everyone is shock due to franchise’s demand.
The Lucknow Super Giants have reportedly contacted the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)’s Centre of Excellence (previously called NCA), demanding them to declare pace sensation Mayank Yadav unfit for the entire 2025 season. It is to be noted that LSG retained Mayank Yadav for INR 11 Crore ahead of the mega auction in November 2024.
LSG demands NCA to declare Mayank Yadav unfit: Reports
Although the 22-year-old is likely to miss the first half of the 2025 season of IPL as he is recovering from a lumbar stress injury which he sustained during his international debut series against Bangladesh last year. As BCCI is yet to give a fitness update on the pacer, a report from MyKhel reported that the LSG officials contacted doctors at NCA.
“This is the first time that an IPL team is demanding such a weird request. Even the NCA guys are in a state of shock after hearing the request,” a BCCI source said, as quoted by OneCricket. According to the IPL rules and regulations, a franchise cannot name a replacement until a player is ruled out. But the reports have also stated that the management has refuted such claims.
This comes as a massive setback seeing the LSG are sweating hard ahead of their opening match, where they will take on Delhi Capitals on Monday, March 24 in Visakhapatnam. If the trio fails to get fit for the opening clash, LSG will only have Akash Deep as their sole star bowler.
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, Shahbaz Ahmad, M. Siddharth, Akash Singh, Digvesh Singh, Himmat Singh, Aryan Juyal, Shamar Joseph, Yuvraj Chaudhary, Prince Yadav, Matthew Breetzke, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Arshini Kulkarni
