Former India player Aakash Chopra has picked the LSG’s middle order of Nicholas Pooran, Rishabh Pant and David Miller as their biggest strength ahead of IPL 2025. He also added that the three left-handed batters play spin well, saying thar the skill as the reason for Pooran’s retention as well. However, LSG retained Pooran for ₹21 crore ahead of the IPL 2025 auction. They bought Pant for a whopping ₹27 crore and Miller for ₹7.50 crore at the mega auction as well.
In a video shared on his YouTube channel ‘Aakash Chopra’, he said, “The middle order is absolutely explosive. It is incredible. They have three left-handers. When you pick three left-handers, the opposing team says they would play an off-spinner. Firstly, very few teams have off-spinners. One is Ravichandran Ashwin, another is Washington Sundar, and after that, which quality off-spinner are you going to see in whichever place?”
“Secondly, all three left-handers, Nicholas Pooran, Rishabh Pant and David Miller, play spin well. You rarely get overseas batters who play spin very well. Nicholas Pooran is right up there with the best in the world. That’s why he was retained. David Miller, again, is a player who plays spin very well,” Chopra further added.
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“He just scored a century in a losing cause in the Champions Trophy. So they have left-handers and all three will come in the middle. They might come one after the other, unless Rishabh thinks he should go at No. 3, and Nicholas and Miller can be kept at No. 5 and No. 6. I see a slightly flexible batting order,” Chopra shared again.
Aakash Chopra also picked the lot of overseas batting options as another of the LSG’s strengths ahead of IPL 2025 as well.
“You can assume the overseas batting options to be another of their strengths, where you start with Aiden Markram, and then Mitchell Marsh, Matthew Breetzke, Nicholas Pooran and David Miller. So you have got lots of good overseas batting options. A young fast-bowling attack which is extremely promising. It includes Mayank Yadav, Mohsin Khan, Akash Deep, Akash Singh and Avesh Khan. The Indian fast-bowling core is promising. However, it is slightly inexperienced as well,” Aakash Chopra concluded.
