Zaheer Khan, a former left-arm fast bowler for India, was officially selected as the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) mentor on Wednesday at the RPSG Group Headquarters in Kolkata.
Here’s where all your waiting is over! “The renowned Indian coach, #Zaheer Khan, is leading the @LucknowIPL as the King of Reverse Swing,” the LSG franchise’s owners, RPSG Group, stated on their ‘X’ account.
After Gautam Gambhir leaves LSG after the 2023 IPL, Zaheer will take over as mentor. This year, Gambhir took on the role of mentor for the Kolkata Knight Riders and guided them to their third IPL championship in Chennai. He succeeded Rahul Dravid as the head coach of the India men in July.
The 45-year-old Zaheer became a member of LSG’s coaching staff, which includes assistant coaches Lance Klusener and Adam Voges in addition to head coach Justin Langer. Since Morne Morkel resigned to pursue a similar post with the Indian team, the team is now without a bowling coach.
Zaheer played for the Delhi Capitals, Mumbai Indians, and Royal Challengers Bengaluru. In 100 games, he claimed 102 wickets at an economy rate of 7.58.
Zaheer, who played for India in the 2011 ODI World Cup, has also been named in a number of stories as the head of the franchise’s talent development program. However, there has been no official announcement on this as of yet.
From 2018 until 2022, he was a member of the Mumbai Indians (MI) team, initially as director of cricket and subsequently as head of global development.
The former pacer was part of the commentary squad for JioCinema, a digital broadcaster, for the 2023 and 2024 Indian Premier League seasons.
Sanjiv Goenka purchased LSG in 2022 for INR 7090 crore, and the BRSABV Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow serves as their home field. The team made it to the playoffs in the IPL 2022 and 2023 seasons before losing both of its elimination matches.
Due to a negative Net Run Rate (NRR), LSG finished the IPL 2024 season in seventh place overall and missed out on a postseason berth.