IPL 2025: 'No Advantage' - After CSK And KKR, LSG Also Unhappy With Home Pitch Following Defeat to PBKS

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After Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) become the third team to express dissatisfaction with the home pitch following the team's defeat to Punjab Kings (PBKS) in IPL 2025 on Tuesday (April 1) in Lucknow.

In their first home game of the season at the BRSABV Ekana Stadium, Rishabh Pant-led LSG posted a target of 172, which was chased down by Shreyas Iyer's PBKS with 8 wickets in hand and 3.4 overs to spare.

Following the defeat to PBKS, LSG mentor Zaheer Khan was disappointed with the wicket and even remarked that it felt as if the opposition had brought their own curator to prepare the pitch in Lucknow.

"What was a little disappointing for me here. 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," Zaheer said at the post-match press conference.

"I think maybe it looked like, you know, it was Punjab curator out here. So that's something which we will figure. It's a new set-up for me, but I hope that this is the first and the last game when it comes to that. Because you are disappointing the Lucknow fans as well. They've come up with so many expectations of winning the first home game here."

Zaheer hoped to get the most of the remaining home games, "As a team, we are confident. We accept that we've lost the game, and we have got to do whatever it takes to make that impact in the home leg.

"We still have six more games to go here, and this team has shown in the season so far, whatever little cricket is played, that we have the right outlook and the mindset to look at the IPL. What you can expect is innovation, out-of-the-box thinking, the fight, the hunger, and that sums us up as a team," he said.

LSG may have preferred a spin-friendly wicket as their fast-bowling unit has been hit with injuries. With Mayank Yadav and Akash Deep yet to gain fitness, LSG would have hoped for the spinners do the job at least at home, something what CSK and KKR also have wanted earlier.

Kolkata Knight Riders' captain Ajinkya Rahane had asked for more spin-friendly pitches at the Eden Gardens to make the pitch suitable for the home team. However, the pitch curator denied the request and KKR lost their season opener at home against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB).

Similarly, CSK head coach Stephen Fleming had said a stark contrast in the nature of wickets at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium made it difficult for his team to create a home advantage after team's loss to RCB.