Zaheer Khan parts ways with Lucknow Super Giants as his vision did not align with that of head coach Justin Langer.
Mentor Zaheer Khan parts ways with Lucknow Super Giants.
After just one season, Zaheer Khan, the team’s coach, left the Lucknow Super Giants. On Thursday, Zaheer notified LSG of his choice.
It is known that Zaheer’s main motivation for leaving the team was because his goals did not coincide with those of team owner Sanjeev Goenka and head coach Justin Langer. Although Zaheer and captain Rishabh Pant maintained a close bond, he was impacted by the strategy that contributed to LSG’s decline in the standings during the second half of the 2025 Indian Premier League.
After Gautam Gambhir departed LSG following the 2023 Indian Premier League, Zaheer took over in August 2024. Zaheer, who was in charge of scouting, planning, and strategy for the Mumbai Indians from 2018 to 2022, signed to a two-year contract with LSG.
LSG failed to make it to the knockout stages in the last two seasons of the IPL after qualifying for the playoffs in their first two seasons in 2022 and 2023. They have six victories from 14 games in 2025, which put them in seventh place. There were two opposing sides to the season: LSG won five of their first eight games but only one of their final six. They only won two of the eight games they played at Ekana Stadium, their home field.
When LSG purchased Pant for INR 27 crore (about USD 3.2 million) in last year’s big auction, they grabbed headlines and became the most expensive IPL player ever. Although the club was constructed around him, Zaheer added the components he thought were necessary to make it stronger each season.
Even though there was a lot of discussion over Pant opening the batting, Zaheer told the wicketkeeper-batter early on that Mitchell Marsh opening with Aiden Markram would be a better plan. That tactic, which Zaheer demonstrated to Pant and the leadership team, would lighten the load on their top hitter, No. 3 Nicholas Pooran.
The hitters were able to play freely and reliably because of the role clarity. Marsh had been in the IPL for over ten years, but he had never made a significant impression, while Markram had never opened in the IPL before. The decision paid off: Pooran scored 524 runs at 196.25, Markram scored 445 at 148.82, while Marsh scored 627 runs at a strike rate of 163.70, ranking seventh in the IPL 2025.