New boys Lucknow Super Giants make waves in debut IPL auction

The new franchise ended day two with a well balanced squad, including six overseas allrounders, raw pace and explosive batting at both ends of the innings

Lucknow Super Giants were the only side to spend their entire purse on their first appearance at the IPL auction.

The new franchise ended day two with a well balanced squad, including six overseas allrounders, raw pace and explosive batting at both ends of the innings.

It represents fine work by the recruitment team charged with assembling a crack team capable of immediately competing in the best T20 competition on the planet.

After acquiring Quinton de Kock, Jason Holder and Mark Wood on Saturday, Sunday saw the Super Giants play it a little lower key.

^{Mark Wood is part of the Lucknow Super Giants setup}

There were moves for West Indians Kyle Mayers and Evin Lewis - Lewis, who will provide backup to the top three, was not snapped up until into the second round of accelerated bidding - but otherwise the focus was mostly on homegrown talent to play a supporting role.

A perfect example of the temperamental nature of paychecks in the IPL was highlighted by Lucknow’s acquisition of K Gowtham.

The off-spinning allrounder fetched 9.2 crore (around £905,000) from Chennai Super Kings in the 2021 mini auction but here he was picked up by the Super Giants for one 10th of that figure.

Gowtham is likely to be a regular feature of this team, which does not have a great deal of spin depth - Gowtham and Ravi Bishnoi aside. 

But there are oodles of runs to be had between De Kock, KL Rahul, Marcus Stoinis, Krunal Pandya and Deepak Hooda. 

^{Jason Holder adds runs and wickets to the Super Giants lineup}

"We wanted someone like a Quinton, because we wanted to free KL up from his keeping responsibilities. Sometimes, being a keeper, captain and opening batsman can be strenuous," Gautam Gambhir, the Super Giants team mentor, said.

"Then we wanted Stoinis, a batting allrounder, and then we went for a bowling allrounder in Jason Holder to split between them.

"Then we took Manish Pandey. Deepak Hooda can chip in with a few overs. Gowtham clearly from a perspective that Hooda is a batting allrounder, Gowtham is a bowling allrounder.

"And we are using only three-four stadiums, so wickets may turn later in the season. Plus we always wanted pace. Imagine if you have Mark Wood and Avesh Khan bowling at 140-145, that will always be a luxury."

Lucknow Super Giants squad: KL Rahul, Marcus Stoinis, Ravi Bishnoi, Quinton de Kock, Manish Pandey, Jason Holder, Deepak Hooda, Krunal Pandya, Mark Wood, Avesh Khan, Ankit Rajpoot, K Gowtham, Dushmanta Chameera, Shahbaz Nadeem, Manan Vohra, Mohsin Khan, Ayush Badoni, Kyle Mayers, Karan Sharma, Evin Lewis, Mayank Yadav, B Sai Sudharsan