Moody pinpoints Pant and Pooran’s price for LSG’s bowling corps and felt were too “emotional” with their retentions of Mayank and Bishnoi.
Moody pinpoints that Pant, Pooran price tags left LSG light on their bowling.
Tom Moody on ESPNcricinfo’s Time Out noted that the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) were unable to assemble a bowling unit after spending a significant amount of money (INR 27 crore) on Rishabh Pant at the auction and keeping Nicholas Pooran for a hefty sum (INR 21 crore) after Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) eliminated them from IPL 2025 playoff contention on Monday.
“The expense on Rishabh Pant and Nicholas Pooran, those two players, makes it very hard to build a very strong bowling unit,” Moody said. “Because you just don’t have the funds to compete at the auction table.
“In an ideal world, it’s great to have Pooran, [David] Miller, [Mitchell] Marsh, Pant… all these are impactful batters but at the end of the day you need to bowl. You’ve got to be able to have an impactful bowling unit in powerplays. Be adaptable in the middle overs and take wicket and squeeze the opposition. And in the back-end of the innings, you need people to close the game under pressure – take wickets, bowl those really challenging overs when the opposition is going hell-for-leather against you. And I just don’t think they’ve got any of that.”
Mayank Yadav, who was kept by LSG, was largely out of action, and left-arm bowler Mohsin Khan missed the entire season with their bowling unit. Due to their fitness problems, Avesh Khan and Akash Deep also gave subpar results, and Shardul Thakur, Mohsin’s substitute, also slowed down after a strong start.
Although Abhinav Mukund agreed with Moody, he also believed that LSG might have made a mistake by being “really emotional” with their selections, particularly when choosing Mayank and Ravi Bishnoi.
“Avesh is a tick, but Akash has played a handful of games in the IPL,” Abhinav said. “He’s primary a red-ball bowler known in this country for his red-ball skills. And over and above that, you’ve invested in Mayank Yadav. A lot of teams get emotional about their picks, they get really emotional like ‘we’ve found him, we need to have him, we need to ensure that he’s here.’ That’s the same with Bishnoi.