Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) suffered a morale-sapping eight-wicket defeat against Punjab Kings in IPL 2025 at the Ekana Cricket Stadium here on Tuesday.
Speaking at the post-match press conference, LSG mentor Zaheer Khan expressed his dissatisfaction with the pitch laid out for his side’s first home game of the season.
“What was a little disappointing for me here was it’s a home game, and in IPL you’ve seen how teams have looked at taking a little bit of home advantage. So from that point of view, you’ve seen the curator is not really thinking that it’s a home game. I think maybe it looked like it was Punjab’s curator out here (laughs). So that’s something which we’ll figure out,” said Zaheer.
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The Kings had the upper hand over LSG throughout the contest played on a red-soil surface. The home team lost three wickets in the PowerPlay after being inserted and could never break free of the opposition’s grasp.
LSG’s lack of impact continued with the ball, as the Kings rode on fifties from Prabhsimran Singh and Shreyas Iyer to chalk off an easy innings.
Zaheer is hopeful that LSG will not be denied its home advantage. “It’s a new setup for me. 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 many expectations of winning the first home game here.”
The former Indian pacer also emphasised that his team will try to step it up in the rest of the home leg and meet the Lucknow fans’ hopes.
“As a team, we are confident. We accept that we’ve lost the game, and we will do whatever it takes to make that impact in the home leg. We still have six more games to go here, and this team has shown so far that we have the right outlook and mindset for the IPL,” added Zaheer.