IPL Auction 2022: Lucknow Super Giants pleased with 'multi-utility' squad

IPL auction, according to franchise owner Sanjiv Goenka and head coach Andy Flower. The KL Rahul-led Lucknow had a very good first day at the IPL auction, probably the best among all franchises, and followed it up on Sunday with the handy Rs 2 crore purchase of pacer Dushmantha Chameera and opener Evin Lewis. There were some other useful buys like spin-bowling allrounder K Gowtham. IPL AUCTION: AS IT HAPPENED"We are very happy. I'm glad we seem to have a well-considered, versatile squad. We wanted to have a lot of multi-skilled, multi-dimensional players and some backup options and we could pull it off," RPSG Group chairman and franchise owner Sanjiv Goenka told TOI. "Even though we had all plans in place, there was a lot of thinking on our feet involved. We got a great opener in Quinton (de Kock). We have a very good allrounder in Jason Holder. In Rahul and Manish Pandey we have two solid Indian batsmen."

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The new IPL team Lucknow Super Giants is the only franchise to have spent the entire amount of Rs 90 crore in the IPL Mega Auction 2022. Avesh Khan was bought by them for Rs 10 crore, the highest in the history of IPL for uncapped players.

Lucknow now have a slew of allround options, including the retained Marcus Stoinis. In a new trend, spin-bowling allrounders like Krunal Pandya (8. 25 crore) and Deepak Hooda (Rs 5. 75 crore) were much in demand. Flower, however, insisted Lucknow had not consciously created the trend, even though they seem to have factored in the wearing pitches in the second half of the season. "I wouldn't blanket-value one type of cricketer with the value of another type," Flower said. "In