Zaheer Khan takes a dig at LSG curator: Didn’t seem like a home game vs PBKS

Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) mentor Zaheer Khan said that his team didn’t get much of a ‘home advantage’ in their IPL 2025 clash against the Punjab Kings. On Tuesday, LSG slumped to a heavy eight-wicket.

Defeat to the Super Giants at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow. After being asked to bat first, LSG could only manage to score 171 for the loss of seven wickets. Thereafter, PBKS made light work of the chase, tracking down the target with 22 balls left in their innings. Zaheer said that the Super Giants didn’t quite get the pitch they had expected for a home game.

“What was a little disappointing for me here, considering it’s a home game, is that in the IPL, we’ve seen how teams look to take advantage of playing at home. From that point of view, it seemed like the curator wasn’t really considering it as a home game. It almost felt the Punjab curator was out here. That’s something we’ll have to figure out,” Zaheer said in the post-match press conference.

‘Rishabh Pant will certainly contribute’
Zaheer also backed LSG skipper Rishabh Pant to come good in the tournament. Pant hasn’t had the best of outings thus far, having scored only 17 runs at an average of 5.66 with scores of 0, 15 and 2.

“As we said, look, we always have to find a way, after all, he is our captain. Everyone has expectations from him, and as he has done excellent work as a captain, he will certainly contribute in the same way as a player,” Zaheer added.

With their defeat to PBKS, the Super Giants slipped to sixth in the table with a net run rate of -0.150. Their next match is against Mumbai Indians (MI) on April 4 at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow.