NEW DELHI: Ahead of the IPL 2025 season, Sanjiv Goenka, the owner of the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), stated that the team’s new captain has been selected and will be revealed in the coming days.
During the IPL 2022-24 season, KL Rahul captained LSG, and when the batter was sidelined in the latter part of 2023, Krunal Pandya took over as captain. However, prior to last month’s mega auction in Jeddah, the franchise decided not to retain the duo.
LSG has leadership options in former Delhi Capitals captain Rishabh Pant, current Australia and South Africa T20I captains Mitchell Marsh and Aiden Markram, and West Indies keeper-batter Nicholas Pooran, who previously led the national team, since Rahul is now with the Delhi Capitals and Krunal is with Royal Challengers Bengaluru.
“People get surprised easily. I don’t think you get surprised easily. It’s been decided. But we will announce in the next few days. We have four leaders in our team – Rishabh, Pooran, Markram and Mitch Marsh.”
“So, it becomes a very strong leadership pool of intellect, thought and strategy. They are all people who can go for the mindset to win. Rishabh has that hunger, and passion that he wants to win, and do something and show it. So, the team is good and we are happy,” said Goenka in a video on former India opener Aakash Chopra’s YouTube channel on Monday.

Along with Mayank Yadav and Ravi Bishnoi (Rs 11 crore each) and the uncapped pair of Ayush Badoni and Mohsin Khan (Rs 4 crore each), LSG had kept Pooran for Rs 21 crore. They acquired Pant for Rs 27 crore at the mega auction, making him the costliest IPL signing ever.
“Our internal feeling is that our auction was very good. Our focus was that our middle order and finishing should be very strong. So, that number three to eight are very strong. Another thing we wanted was to go with an Indian pace attack, instead of international pace, and we went with explosive international batters. So, now we have got a combination of the two,” added Goenka.
He concluded by stating that the new captain, coach Justin Langer, and mentor Zaheer Khan will choose who bats first among Markram, Marsh, and Pant. “We decided that we had to make our middle order strong and have an Indian core. However, auctions don’t go exactly the way you plan it. We made a very big go for Jos Buttler but we fell one or two bid amounts short. Zak (Zaheer Khan), JL (Justin Langer), and the captain will decide it.”
“Those are calls that frankly are beyond my capability and competence. Zak has a thought process and I think he has already spoken to the captain a couple of times, and I think Zak, Langer and the captain will be meeting soon together, and all three of them will have a conversation and they will take a call. Whatever their call is, I will support it 100 per cent.”