Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) mentor Zaheer Khan has been left disappointed by pitch dished out at their home ground by the curator. The disappointment came after LSG lost their first game of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 season by eight wickets and 22 balls left against Punjab Kings. Zaheer, however, hoped that they'll be able to figure it out.

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"What was a little disappointing for me here…" Zaheer said at press conference after the loss on Tuesday (Apr 1). "Considering it's a home game and in IPL you've seen how teams have looked at taking a little bit of home advantage, from that point of view you've seen the curator is not really thinking that it's a home game. I think maybe it looked like, you know, it was Punjab curator out here.

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This is not the first time home advantage and pitch curator not helping has been talked about out loud this season. Earlier, KKR skipper Ajinkya Rahane had also voiced same concerns regarding the pitch at Eden Garden in Kolkata.

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LSG, however, have more to worry about than getting the pitch right and first of those worries is skipper Rishabh Pant's form. The wicketkeeper-batter, bought for INR 27 crore (>$3 million approx) has not been able to get going in the tournament so far.

In the three matches played, Pant has scores of 0, 15 and 2 - and this poor batting has been a big factor in LSG's two losses in three games.

Their batting has been relying on Mitchell Marsh and Nicholas Pooran so far. In the match against PBKS, Marsh got out on a duck and Pooran scored 44 off 30 balls - around 30 runs less than what he had scored in the last two games. Pant said after the match that's how much they were short while setting the target.

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But it is not only Pant who has been out form, Aiden Markram at the top has scored 15, 1 and 28 runs in three games; David Miller hasn't been able to finish well, managing 27 not out, 13 not out and 19 in three games; Ayush Badoni has managed 4, 6 and 41 runs in those games.

So it is more about batting than pitch for LSG at the moment and they need to figure it out soon.