On Wednesday, at an event held at the RPSG Group Headquarters in Kolkata, the former Indian left-arm fast bowler Zaheer Khan was name the mentor of Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) In place of Gambhir, that is, who took over the mentor role from last week, Gautam has shifted to KKR and guided them to their third IPL win. In a shake-up, Gambhir took over from Rahul Dravid as India’s men’s team’s head coach in July.
Zaheer, now 45, becomes one of the supporting staff that has Justin Langer as the head coach and Lance Klusener and Adam Voges as assistant coaches who are currently with the twins. Following Morne Morkel’s move to the Indian team in the same role, LSG does not currently have a bowling coach.
As part of the 2011 ODI World Cup winning Indian team, Zaheer Krane would add close to ten years of playing experience and a similar amount of mentoring experience as well. In his IPL career, he played for Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Delhi Capitals and featured in 100 matches taking 102 wickets at an economy of 7.58.
Further reports have stated that Zaheer is also expected to be in charge of the franchise’s development of talent, but this has not yet been confirmed.
Zaheer has worked with the Mumbai Indians franchise as the director of cricket and then as global development head from 2018 till 2022.
Zaheer was a member of the commentary panel for JioCinema’s web streaming in IPL 2023 and 2024 seasons.
Owned by businessman Sanjiv Goenka since 2022 for 7090 crore rupees, LSG is based out of BRSABV Ekana Cricket Stadium, Lucknow. The team managed to qualify for the playoffs in both seasons 2022 and 2023 of IPL but entered to exit the eliminator rounds. In IPL 2024, LSG did not qualify for the playoffs due to an unfavorable Net run rate (NRR) standing secondly last in the table.
