Former IPL coach says LSG spent too much money on Pant and Pooran, making it 'hard to build a very strong bowling unit'

Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) crashed out of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 season after their loss against SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) on Monday (May 19). They started the season well but injuries coupled with lack of bowling options did them in the second half.

Talking to ESPNCrincinfo, former IPL coach Tom Moody says that LSG spent too much on Nicholas Pooran and Rishabh Pant which left them with insufficient funds to compete at the auction for the bowlers.

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LSG bought pant for an IPL record of INR 27 crore ($3.21 million) and Pooran for INR 21 crore (2.5 million) - leaving them with about INR 72 crore or a little than then $10 million for the rest of the buys.

"The expense on Rishabh Pant and Nicholas Pooran, those two players, makes it very hard to build a very strong bowling unit," Moody said. "Because you just don't have the funds to compete at the auction table.

"In an ideal world, it's great to have Pooran, [David] Miller, [Mitchell] Marsh, Pant... all these are impactful batters but at the end of the day you need to bowl. You've got to be able to have an impactful bowling unit in powerplays. Be adaptable in the middle overs and take wicket and squeeze the opposition. And in the back-end of the innings, you need people to close the game under pressure - take wickets, bowl those really challenging overs when the opposition is going hell-for-leather against you. And I just don't think they've got any of that," he added.

Lucknow started by winning four of their first games - putting them in the top half of the points table. In the next six games, however, they lost five matches including last four consecutively and are currently at seventh place on the table with just 10 points to their name.