One of the two new franchises to enter the Indian Premier League (IPL) from the upcoming 2022 season, the Lucknow-based team on Monday announced ‘Lucknow Super Giants’ as their name ending weeks of speculation.
Notably, the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group, who previously ran the Rising Pune Supergiant (RPSG) team in 2016 and 2017 IPLs, had bought the rights of the Lucknow franchise for a whopping Rs 7,090 crore in October, 2021.
Earlier, the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) had named Flamboyant India opener KL Rahul as its skipper for a whopping 17 crore.
Meanwhile, Australian all-rounder Marcus Stoinis and young Ravi Bishnoi were also signed by the LSG ahead of the mega auction which will be held on February 12 and 13 in Bengaluru.
While Stoinis will receive Rs 9.2 Crore, Bishnoi will be paid Rs 4 crore.
The 21-year-old Bishni is yet to play for India but has been impressed in the cash-rich league as playing for the Punjab Kings (PBKS) in the last two seasons, he had bagged 12 wickets each in both the 2020 and 2021.
After signing of these three players, the LSG, which had also appointed Andy Flower and Gautam Gambhir as the head coach and mentor respectively, will now go into the auction with a purse of Rs 58 crore.
Earlier, the Sanjeev Goenka-owned RPSG group had bagged the ownership rights of the Lucknow franchise on October 25 in the team auction in Dubai. On the other hand, CVC Capital had acquired the Ahmedabad franchise for for Rs 5625 crore. After acquiring the teams, both Sanjeev Goenka-owned RPSG group and CVC Capital will need to pay the entire amount over a period of 10 years.
Notably in the team auctions in October 2021, as many as 10 parties had entered the bidding war and had got an option to choose from from six centres – Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Cuttack, Dharamsala, Guwahati and Indore – to base their team in.
All the interested parties were asked to submit two envelopes – one for personal and financial credentials and the second for the bid and the entire process was overseen by the IPL Governing Council as well as the BCCI top officials like president Ganguly, secretary Shah, treasurer Arun Dhumal, vice-president Rajeev Shukla and joint-secretary Jayesh George.
The addition of Ahmedabad and Lucknow means the total number of teams rises to 10 from eight.
Last week, after a meeting with the owners of the franchises of the league, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) secretary Jay Shah had announced that the 2022 season will begin in the last week of March and will conclude in May.
The BCCI secretary however, didn’t announced the venue of the mega auctions however, several reports suggest that the two-day affair is most likely to be staged in Bengaluru.
Notably, 1,214 players had registered for the upcoming auction. Of the 1,214 players, 896 are Indians while the remaining 318 are overseas, who have signed up for the auction.