Picture Credit: BCCI/IPL
With the Indian Premier League (IPL) General Council announcing October 31 as the deadline day for franchises to submit the list of retained players for IPL 2025, the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) went on to retain four Indian players along with Nicholas Pooran being their only overseas retention. Joining him in the retained list of players was Mayank Yadav, Ravi Bishnoi, Ayush Badoni and Mohsin Khan.
The franchise spent a massive sum of money, retaining the likes of Mayank Yadav, Ayush Badoni and Ravi Bishnoi for INR 11 Crore each, Mohsin Khan retained his place, earning INR 4 Crore. Among all of them, Mayank Yadav has been the talking point off late with his pace, clicking 150 kmph mark regularly despite injury struggles.
The contribution he makes to the game and to LSG was “guiding principle”: LSG co-owner
Yadav, who featured in only four matches for LSG after making his debut against Punjab Kings, scalped seven wickets at an economy of 6.98 before getting ruled out with a back injury. Although he had been sidelined since then before making his India debut in the T20I series against Bangladesh last month. The Delhi-born cricketer has been once again sidelined for a period of three months due to recurring back injury, the LSG co-owner opened up on retaining him despite continuous injury struggles.
“The way you look at it, when a player is playing a match, is he able to contribute to a win? I think Mayank fits that bill perfectly. He played in four games last season and picked up seven wickets. That itself shows the potential of the individual. If you look at other players with similar backgrounds, when they first started off, they were injury-prone as well, and they had to work on their fitness, if I can put it that way,” LSG co-owner Shashwat Goenka told The Times of India.
“So that (injury) wasn’t the deciding factor; it was about when he plays, what is the contribution he makes to the game and to LSG. That was the guiding principle behind keeping him,” he added.
With LSG having INR 69 Crore to bid from in the IPL 2025 mega auction, the franchise will be looking to get a few of their players from previous edition as Head Coach Justin Langer informed. This also opens the door for Indian wicketkeeper-batter and captain of LSG, KL Rahul to return into the side if he gets re-signed by LSG.
