Be it international cricket or the Indian Premier League (IPL), teams feel comfortable playing at their home ground and are aware of the conditions. Moreover, they also get call shots on what kind of pitches to offer for a game. But the same is not the case with the Lucknow Super Giants. They have struggled immensely playing at the Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow since IPL 2025, winning only two out of their last 10 matches at the venue.
On Wednesday, they failed to chase down 160 runs, the lowest total of IPL 2026, against the Rajasthan Royals. Despite chasing such a modest total, LSG lost the game by a whopping margin of 40 runs. After the match, their head coach Justin Langer admitted that the team has failed to adapt to the pace and bounce while also comparing the surface at their home ground to the WACA in Perth.
"I think the pitch here is very different than in most of India. It's a brilliant cricket pitch. You see pace and bounce and we just haven't quite adjusted to it. I thought we started off with bowling quite well in it. We bowled well in the first game but we're just not adjusting to the extra pace and bounce. We saw that we've been out to the short ball a number of times, our batters, and that's what I would say," Langer said after the match.
"So we're not adjusting. We see a lot of the wickets in India where the ball doesn't bounce very high. This is like playing at the WACA (Perth). There's real pace and bounce, isn't there?" he added.
Langer lauds pace bowling unit for stepping up
LSG's pace bowling attack is arguably one of the best and they unleashed four such bowlers on the Rajasthan Royals on Wednesday. The likes of Mohsin Khan, Mohammed Shami and Prince Yadav made life tough for the batters as they equally shared all six wickets to fall in the innings while restricting the Royals to just 159 runs in their 20 overs. But little did they know that their batters would mess even such a small chase.
"Last year our numbers were incredible and we were ruing the fact that a lot of our bowlers were injured or coming back from injury or not quite fit. This year our bowlers have been a real credit. I think Mohsin Khan, again outstanding. Prince Yadav, I think they're both two players who will play for India. No question in my mind they'll both play for India," Langer further said.
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