Another IPL home team and mentor Zaheer Khan has been left frustrated by the conditions at their own ground. Following an eight-wicket defeat with 22 balls to spare in their first home game of the season, Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) mentor Zaheer Khan remarked that it felt as if the opposition had brought their own curator to prepare the pitch. “What was a little disappointing for me here…” Zaheer Khan said at the post-match press conference, as quoted from ESPNCricinfo.
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.
Punjab Kings thrashed Lucknow Super Giants at Ekana by 8 wickets
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.
With injuries limiting their fast-bowling options, LSG might have preferred a pitch that favoured spin or at least neutralized the Punjab Kings (PBKS) pace attack. However, they fielded only two frontline quicks, including a last-minute addition in Shardul Thakur, while their squad has just one overseas fast bowler–Shamar Joseph.
PBKS capitalized on the conditions with their pace trio of Arshdeep Singh, Lockie Ferguson, and Marco Jansen, who combined for figures of 5/112 in 13 overs, with Marcus Stoinis chipping in with two more overs.
At the post-match presentation, Rishabh Pant spoke of how LSG wanted to play PBKS on a “slow wicket”. But the pitch looked anything but that when PBKS batters chased a modest target of 172 with 22 balls to spare. There was also not a great amount of help available for the spinners, with Ravi Bishnoi returning figures of 3-0-43-0.
LSG have now lost two of their first three matches this season, with their home record slipping to just 7 wins in 15 completed games at the Ekana Stadium. Across those 15 matches, a total of 200 has been breached only once and it’s increasingly clear that the current state of the pitch isn’t meeting the team’s needs. Zaheer Khan said that the Super Giants didn’t quite get the pitch they had expected for a home game.
LSG mentor Zaheer Khan slams Lucknow curator after loss vs PBKS in IPL 2025
First, it was the Kolkata Knight Riders. Then, the Chennai Super Kings. And now, the Lucknow Super Giants. The Zaheer Khan-mentored side has become the third franchise this season to be frustrated by a home pitch.
Following LSG’s eight-wicket drubbing at home, Zaheer Khan said he was “disappointed” that the Lucknow curator was “not really thinking that it’s a home game,” even going so far as to call it the work of a “Punjab curator.”
“What was a little disappointing for me here, considering it’s a home game…”Zaheer said.
“In IPL, you’ve seen how teams have looked at taking a little bit of home advantage, you know, so yeah, from that point of view, you’ve seen the curator is not really thinking that it’s a home game, you know. I think maybe it looked like, you know, it was Punjab curator out here.
“That’s something which we’ll figure out. It’s a new setup for me also here. But I hope that this is the first and the last game when it comes to that, because you are disappointing the Lucknow fans as well. They’ve come up with so much expectations of winning the first home game here.
“As a team, we are confident, you know, we accept that we’ve lost the game, and we’re going to do whatever it takes to make that impact in the home leg. We still have six more games to go here.
Before the start of play, Zaheer Khan had spent a lot of time at the pitch side with Pant, the captain of the side. Did they, by any chance, misread the surface , Zaheer Khan, on misreading the pitch, said,
“That’s what we are saying. We will go according to what the curator tells us. We are not using this as an excuse. We have seen during the last season that it’s not like batters don’t have to struggle here at times. All these things go on in cricket. But the way the home team should get support, everyone needs to know this is our home team that is playing in Lucknow and what can we do to help them win Everyone’s contribution is important. We will find a way to win matches…”.
LSG are the third team to express frustration at the home conditions after Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Chennai Super Kings (CSK). KKR suggested they wanted more assistance for spin but that they didn’t have any say. CSK, the team with the best win-loss ratio at home in all IPL, said they have been struggling to get a read on home conditions for two years now.
Zaheer Khan 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