UPT20 League: Lucknow Falcons sign Bhuvneshwar Kumar for record amount at auction

For the UPT20 League’s second season, the Lucknow Falcons signed seasoned Indian pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar. In the competition’s first iteration, the 34-year-old participated for Noida Super Kings and finished as the fourth-leading wicket-taker after taking 14 wickets in nine games. Despite losing to Kashi Rudras in the opening semi-final, Noida ultimately placed second on the points table.

The teams that had been competing the longest for Bhuvneswar were Gorakhpur Lions and Kanpur Superstars. However, because to a lack of funding to assemble the remaining players, Gorakhpur was forced to withdraw.

Subsequently, the Lucknow Falcons entered the fray and ultimately acquired him for an incredible sum of INR 30.25 lakhs. The pacer was acquired by Lucknow, thus his previous team Noida had the chance to use the Right To Match (RTM) cards, but they declined.

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For the second edition, Lucknow signed Aditya Kumar Singh, Kritagya Kumar Singh, Sameer Choudhary, and Viprag Nigam in addition to Bhuvneshwar.

Priyam Garg, the captain of the Indian team at the 2020 U19 World Cup, was also retained. The 23-year-old was not selected in the auction for the 2024 competition since he was unable to demonstrate his value during the IPL. The young player will be vying for additional opportunities in the IPL by performing well in the next UPT20 tournament.

At the B ground of the Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Bajpai Ekana Stadium, Lucknow recently held a two-day trial. AW Zaidi, Umang Sharma, Ravikant Shukla, and Mritunjay Tripathi, in addition to chief coach Amrish Gautam, were present throughout the tryouts as coaches of bowling, batting, and fielding, respectively.

Despite placing third in the previous competition, Lucknow was defeated by Meerut Mavericks in the semifinals. They will be looking to win the match this time, and Bhuveshwar will be crucial to making that happen. He has a point to prove as well because the pacer wants to make an impression on the selectors in order to be included for the Champions Trophy team representing India.