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LSG vs PBKS IPL 2025: Zaheer Khan, who is the mentor of Lucknow Super Giants, has slammed the pitch curator of the Ekana cricket stadium for making such a surface which didn't help the hosts much. Zaheer has reckoned that in the ongoing tournament, teams look forward to home advantage, but this didn't help the LSG as they suffered a humiliating loss to PBKS on Tuesday and the pitch surface favored the Punjab-based franchise more.

The Rishabh Pant-led side had lost three wickets during the powerplay but then bounced back brilliantly and posted a respectable target of 171 runs against Punjab Kings, who chased down the target in 16.2 overs.

“What was a little disappointing for me here, considering it’s a home game, and you know, in IPL you’ve seen how teams have looked at taking a little bit of home advantage, you know," Zaheer told reporters during the post-match press conference.

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“So yeah, from that point of view, you’ve seen the curator is not thinking that it’s a home game. You know, I think maybe it looked like it was Punjab curator out here," he said.

Zaheer made these comments after LSG skipper Rishabh Pant revealed that they are still trying to understand the home conditions.

“So, that’s (pitch) something which we’ll figure out. It’s a new setup also for me here. 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," he added.

“They’ve come up with so many expectations of winning the first home game here. As a team, we are confident, you know, we accept that we’ve lost the game, and we’re going to do whatever it takes to make that impact in the home leg. We still have six more games to go here," he said.

The Rishabh Pant-led side are on a two-match living streak and are lying at the sixth position in the points table. But Zaheer revealed that they aren't thinking too much about the results.

“This is the third game of the season, you know, so we’ve been very vocal about how the team is looking at this season. So, that’s very important for us as a group. It’s a very process-oriented setup, not so much result-oriented. So, we’re going to focus on the positives. Yes, there is some work to be done, which will happen in the due course," he concluded.