Zaheer Khan New Nawab of Lucknow Spee Giants Hard Giants

The Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) are going to make a major change to their support staff after the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 season. The Sanjiv Goenka-owned team are on course to remove their head coach, Justin Langer, after 2 seasons.

Having joined LSG in July 2023 after a 4-year stint as Australia’s head coach, things haven’t gone that well. LSG had qualified for back-to-back IPL Playoffs in 2022 and 2023 but were knocked out in the Eliminator both times.

LSG to remove head coach Justin Langer

After Gautam Gambhir left the role of mentor, Langer was brought in. The expectation was that he would take LSG to their maiden IPL trophy soon. Langer had even narrated how he only joined LSG after Goenka lured him in.

“So I sit with Goenka and have this conversation. He’s a calm and nice person and is a very successful businessman. You know what he says in the end, the last words – “Justin, I know you had a very successful coaching career. But let’s face it. You can’t classify yourself as a great coach until you win the IPL’,” Langer had said in April.

One can’t forget that Gujarat Titans, who also came into existence in 2022, made back-to-back finals (2022 and 2023) to start with and even won the title in their inaugural edition. But in the next two seasons under Langer, LSG had failed to even qualify for the IPL Playoffs.

This may have already happened, given the result. But we are hearing that all is not well between Langer and LSG mentor Zaheer Khan. Main players in the team don’t have a close relationship with Langer, and it’s Zaheer who’s handling the day-to-day duties.

“The dressing room structure isn’t good, and it’s reflecting on the field. It’s essentially Zaheer who’s running the team. Either Langer or the franchise will make the exit official in the coming months after a review of the team’s performance,” a source told CricBlogger.

We don’t know whether Zaheer would take over as the new LSG head coach before the IPL 2026 season, but the possibility of it happening can’t be ruled out.