Lucknow is one of the two new franchises that will take part in IPL 2022. Rajiv Goenka’s RPSG Group is the owner of the franchise. The group made a bid of ₹ 7090 crores to win the ownership rights of the team. The RP Sanjiv Goenka group had earlier called the Pune franchise they acquired for two years -Rising Pune Supergiants, and now the Lucknow franchise will be called Lucknow Super Giants.
Lucknow franchise has picked KL Rahul for ₹ 15 crores, Marcus Stoinis for ₹ 11 crores, and Ravi Bishnoi for ₹ 4 crores. KL Rahul is also the skipper of the team, going to be the captain of the Lucknow IPL team. Lucknow has named former Zimbabwe cricketer Andy Flower as their head coach. Vijay Dahiya has been designated as the assistant coach for the team. Gautam Gambhir is the mentor of the franchise.
The franchise will consequently have a purse of ₹ 59 crores at the two-day auction, which is scheduled in Bengaluru between February 12 and 13.
CVC Capitals are the owners of the Ahmedabad franchise. The owners made a bidding price of ₹ 5,625 crores to win the ownership rights of the team. They were previous stakeholders in Formula 1 and recently took a minority-stake in La Liga, the top-flight football league of Spain. Their home will be the world’s largest cricket stadium, the Narendra Modi Stadium, that has an advertised capacity of 132,000 people.
The franchise has chosen Hardik Pandya, Rashid Khan, and Shubman Gill as their three players. The franchise has offered ₹ 15 crores each to Hardik Pandya and Rashid Khan, and ₹ 7 crores to Shubman Gill. Hardik Pandya will be leading the Ahmedabad franchise in IPL 2022. Reportedly, the franchise is going to appoint Ashish Nehra as their head coach and Gary Kirsten as the team mentor.
As per the auction rules, the Ahmedabad franchise’s purse will be lighter by ₹ 38 crore – with the actual amount paid to Rashid and Gill subtracted since it stands higher than the slabs set by the IPL of ₹ 11 crores and ₹ 7 crores when three capped players are retained by a franchise. Ahmedabad will thus go in with ₹ 52 crores to expend in the auction.
These two groups have beaten the other seven bidders that included frontrunners Adani Group and Lancer Capital, whose principal is Avram Glazer, part of the Glazer family that owns Manchester United.
