Shardul Thakur was not supposed to play in IPL 2025. He had made arrangements to play for Essex in England domestic cricket after going unsold in IPL mega auction last year. A few injuries then opened up some slots at Lucknow Super Giants and he got a call.

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Shardul accepted the offer and has bowled two double-wicket overs in as many matches for LSG in IPL 2025. During the match against SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) on Thursday (Mar 26) he finished with 4/34 and and revealed it was Zaheer Khan who had called him to join the franchise.

Also Read: IPL 2025, LGS vs SRH: Playing only 10th T20 game overall, Delhi-based LSG bowler clean bowls Travis Head on first ball - WATCH

"In IPL, all these things keep happening. Unfortunately few injuries here and there and there were few inquiries if I could join the camp. But LSG approached me first so I had to accept it. Zaheer Khan gave me a call. You have good and bad days, you have to go through it in cricket," said Shardul during the innings break.

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Against SRH, Thakur removed dangerous Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan, who had scored a whirlwind ton in the last game, on successive balls - putting IPL's most destructive batting line-up in defense mode.

In the match against Delhi Capitals, Shardul had also picked up two wickets that too in the same over - the first of DC's chase - as he dismissed Jake Fraser-McGurk and Abhishek Porel.

Overall, Thakur has played 95 IPL games for five different franchise over last 10 years. Before turning up for LSG, he played for Punjab Kings in 2015, Rising Pune Supergiants in 2017, CSK from 2018-2022, KKR in 2023 before going back to CSK in 2024.

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In 95 IPL games before this season, he had taken 94 wickets with a best of 4/36 and an economy of 9.22 He also has 307 runs to his name at a strike rate of 137 and a best of 68.