Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) all-rounder Shardul Thakur has blasted former cricketers for criticising players on commentary, following his side’s win over Gujarat Titans (GT) in IPL 2025. Thakur didn’t mince his words while suggesting that the commentators should look at their own stats before passing remarks on others. Speaking in a pre-match press conference, he insisted that criticising bowlers is easy, but the commentators must understand that scores of 200 plus have become common in today’s cricket.

“I’ve always believed that, as a bowling unit, we’ve bowled well throughout the season. A lot of times in commentary, there’s criticism – they try to be hard on the bowlers. But you have to understand that cricket is moving in a certain direction where 200+ scores are becoming more common. And like you said, criticism will always be there – especially from commentators. It’s easy to sit in a studio and comment on someone’s bowling, but they don’t see the real picture out there on the ground. I’m sure they should look at their own stats before criticising anyone,” Shardul said.

Shardul, who is the second highest wicket-taker in IPL 2025 with 11 scalps, also lauded the overall effort from the LSG bowlers so far this season.

“Credit to us that we’ve defended scores on two occasions when we batted first. We put up a good score, the pitch became better for batting, and even with drastic changes, we managed to defend – one game by 10 runs, one by 4 runs in Kolkata. So it was about holding our nerve till the end and believing in ourselves that we could win the game, provided we got an important wicket or bowled a key over,” he added.

Thakur (2/34) and Ravi Bishnoi (2/36) were the top bowlers for LSG during their win over GT.

LSG sit third in the points table with four wins and two losses, giving them eight points. GT has the same win-loss record and sits at number two.

(With ANI Inputs)