Lucknow Super Giants were one of the two franchises which made their debut in the Indian Premier League (IPL) last year and in their debut season itself, the team, which was well assembled by Gautam Gambhir and Andy Flower, managed to make it to the IPL playoffs.
Since the performance of Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in their debut IPL season was of a very high standard, it’s likely that they will retain most of their star performers, but they might also retain some players who didn’t play a big part for them last season.
Here are the 2 players who can be the surprise retentions of Lucknow Super Giants before IPL 2023 –
Karan Sharma
Karan Sharma got only one game for LSG last season and he couldn’t score big in the only opportunity he got, but he is one of those players in India’s domestic cricket who was given the captaincy by his state team on his first-class debut itself. That’s how highly he is rated in India’s domestic cricket circles.
After the IPL, Karan Sharma led his state team Uttar Pradesh to the Ranji Trophy semi-final with a wonderful match winning 92 in the quarter-final. Because of the fact that Karan can also bowl a bit of off-spin apart from his batting, he can be a utility player for Lucknow in the future and they might decide to retain him.
Kyle Mayers
Kyle Mayers was a part of the LSG squad in IPL 2022, but he didn’t get a chance to make his IPL debut, because Quinton de Kock and Evin Lewis were the two overseas players whom Lucknow picked to play at the top of the order in most of the games.
But since the last IPL, Kyle Mayers has enhanced his reputation in international cricket with some match-winning innings for the West Indies national cricket team. Recently Mayers was one of the pre-auction signings by the Super Giants group for the South African T20 league and the group might decide to retain the left-handed opener for next year’s IPL too.