Lucknow Super Giants head coach Justin Langer defended the decision to send an out-of-form Nicholas Pooran to face the Super Over, following their fifth straight defeat in IPL 2026.
Pooran walked out to face Sunil Narine with a historically skewed record in Super Overs: he had managed just 1 run in 9 balls across four separate instances. Against the Kolkata Knight Riders on Sunday (April 26), he was dismissed off the first delivery, slogging at a ball that turned sharply and splattered his stumps.
Speaking at the press conference, Langer said they felt Pooran was the best option to take on his long-time West Indies teammate. Pooran had been dismissed earlier in the game by Varun Chakaravarthy for 9(12).
"We knew that Sunil Narine was the bowler, and if you look at Nicky's (Pooran's) record, he's seen Narine more than anyone in world cricket," Langer said. "So, we felt he was still the best, I know he hasn't hit his form yet, and Nicky will be the first, but we thought if anyone can handle a Super Over, it's Nicky Pooran. And you back your best players, right? That's what you do".
"So, he has struggled, but if you look at all the numbers, no one plays Narine, the world class off spinner, better than Nicky, but it didn't come off unfortunately".
Narine's Super Over record stands at an impressive six wickets from 4.2 overs. Before the game, Pooran had struck Narine at 131.08 in all T20s, averaging 49, and had been dismissed four times in 148 balls. Pooran had also once infamously played out four dots, and was out off the fifth, in a Super Over against Narine in the CPL 12 years ago.
Since then, Pooran has become one of the finest T20 players, striking at 196.25 in the IPL last year. This year, that number has dropped to 81.18.
When asked if Pooran is facing mental pressure, given how challenging the season has been for him, Langer admitted that he is low on confidence, and working hard to get back.
"He's working on it, and it's amazing that even big players like him, there's probably no greater T20 player currently in the world over the last few years, it just goes to show he's human, and you can't fake confidence," Langer said.
"We all try to, you can look like [you are] confident, but confidence comes from getting your processes right, and we're working every day with him, and he is working very hard to get it back. Sometimes this is a tough game of cricket, my gosh, it's a tough game".
Langer conceded that his team did not adjust to the black-soil wicket, which played quite differently to the red-soil surface in the last game. He had called the last pitch "exciting", likening the pace and bounce to the WACA (Perth) pitch.
"It's frustrating. I said after the last game I thought the wicket was very good on the red soil and it was fast and bouncy. I said it was and it's really exciting for cricket and we didn't adapt today to the black soil which was slower and lower and spun a little bit".
"So, it's incredibly frustrating. I feel for the fans. I feel for our supporters. I feel for everyone who follows us. We're not adapting to the conditions as well as we should be."
Langer was all praise for Mohsin Khan, who picked up 5/23 and did most of the early damage. "I said a few nights ago I thought he (Mohsin) and Prince will soon play cricket for India. And the thing about Mohsin Khan is, he is an incredible athlete.
"He's done some great work with Bharat Arun. He spent - what a lot of people don't know - he spent a few months at Bharat's academy in Chennai leading up to this, all off his own back and he did it and he worked hard and he's getting fit. That's why he was so disappointed when he hurt his quad after the first game because we can see how valuable he is.
"We haven't had him much for the last two seasons and it's a great thrill for us to have him in the team and it wouldn't surprise me if it's a great thrill for India to have him in their team in the not-too-distant future," he said.
Additionally, he commended Mohammed Shami and Prince Yadav for their spells but he rued how the last two overs played out, conceding 43 runs on a "pretty low, tougher batting wicket."
"So that hurts, right? That's what T20 cricket's about. You try and negate the really big overs and we had two at the end when we felt like for 18 overs, we were on top of the game. And then they get 40 odd. They get a bit of a sniff.
"They've got two world-class spinners obviously, Varun (Chakaravarthy) and Sunil (Narine). So, they would have felt like they're in the game, and for a lot of that time we felt like we're still in the game and just fell behind and got a bit exciting in the end but not exciting enough".
