Mitchell Marsh leads race to replace Pant as LSG captain

Australian player Mitchell Marsh is emerging as the frontrunner to become the next T20 captain of the Lucknow Super Giants, replacing Rishabh Pant, sources told CricBlogger. While the franchise is yet to take a formal decision on its new skipper and is waiting for certain trade-related formalities to be completed, insiders maintain that the Australian T20 captain is currently the leading candidate to take over the role.

With former Australian coaches Justin Langer and Tom Moody in the setup and reportedly backing Mitchell Marsh, the decision could well be unanimous. “He is the top choice,” a source close to LSG said CricBlogger while adding that the franchise also has the option of South African batter Aiden Markram.

Interestingly, the LSG ownership group has previously shown a preference for Australian leadership. When they owned the Pune franchise during the two-year suspensions of Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals, they opted for Steve Smith as captain ahead of MS Dhoni, despite Dhoni’s stature and success in the IPL. That precedent could further strengthen Marsh’s case as the frontrunner for the LSG captaincy.

If Marsh takes over as the LSG captain, he would be the second Australian to do so in IPL after Pat Cummins. Otherwise, all eight teams have Indians captains that played the last IPL — Rajat Patidar, Shubman Gill, Shreyas Iyer, Riyan Parag, Ajinkya Rahane, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Axar Patel and Hardik Pandya. Earlier, the LSG promoters had captains who were all wicket-keeper batsmen starting from Dhoni, KL Rahul to Rishabh Pant.

Interesting, both LSG and Sunrisers Hyderabad are the only two teams who had problems with the captains and often spilled over to public domain for mismanagement. If LSG had issues with KL Rahul, SRH had problem with former Australian player David Warner.