Our auction was excellent, we have four leaders in our team: LSG owner Sanjiv Goenka

Lucknow Super Giants management wasn’t very happy with KL Rahul’s leadership and that led to the team parting ways with him. They spent heavily in the auction and signed some marquee players in Rishabh Pant and Mitchell Marsh among others. However, with Rahul gone, there were doubts about the potential future captain. Nicholas Pooran was retained for a hefty INR 21 crore and he was deemed the favourite before the auction. After the auction, Pant is the frontrunner to take the role.

Addressing the same, franchise co-owner Sanjiv Goenka noted that there are four leaders in the LSG camp. He also said that the goal for the team was to build a strong middle-order and they were happy with how the auction turned out. Interestingly, the franchise was criticised for building an entire Indian pace unit but Goenka clarified that it was part of the plan.

“Our internal feeling is that our auction was excellent. Our focus was that our middle order and finishing should be extremely strong. Our No. 3 to No. 8 is very strong. Our second wish was to go with a completely Indian pace attack instead of international pace, and explosive international batters. Now we have got a combination of the two," Goenka said in a video shared on Aakash Chopra’s YouTube channel.

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“We have four leaders in our team - Rishabh, Pooran, Markram and Mitch Marsh. So it becomes a very strong leadership pool of intellect and thought, and strategy. They are all people who can go with the mindset to win. Rishabh has the hunger and passion to win. So a good team has been built. We are happy. Overall, the balance is also okay and no team is 10 on 10,” he added.

Notably, LSG signed Pant for INR 27 crore and their other costly signings were Avesh Khan, Akash Deep and David Miller, who they got for INR 9.75, INR 8 and INR 7.50 respectively.