Bought for a whopping ₹7090 crore by the RP Sanjiv Goenka Group, Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) are the most expensive team in IPL history.
The franchise named Andy Flower and Gautam Gambhir as its head coach and mentor, respectively, for its first IPL season. KL Rahul was named skipper for whom the team paid ₹17 crore to acquire his services.
The team started slowly, and their excellent auction strategy soon began to bear fruit. Rahul, Quinton de Kock, and Marcus Stoinis were worth the penny. Even domestic players like Avesh Khan, Deepak Hooda, Mohsin Khan, and Ayush Badoni performed exceedingly well, helping their team reach the playoffs.
Despite an inspiring campaign, they couldn’t make the most of their chances, getting knocked out against Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Eliminator.
In 2023, LSG won eight league games and made the playoffs. They were yet again ousted in the Eliminator. All in all, Lucknow has outperformed some of the heavyweights in the IPL for the last two seasons, and the reason is their strong core of overseas players and a few name faces. Even after losing KL Rahul due to an injury halfway into the 2023 season, they were kept in contention by their overseas players – Stoinis, Nicholas Pooran, Kyle Mayers, etc.