Who is George Linde: George Linde, who was not even a part of any team before the start of the IPL 2026 tournament. Everyone was surprised when he came to bat for Lucknow Super Giants on Sunday. He scored 16 runs in 10 balls against Gujarat Titans. Who is George Linde and how did he suddenly come out to bat for the Lucknow team?

Actually, George Linde comes from South Africa and is an all-rounder player by profession. George, 34, bowls left-handed off-spin and also bats well. Last year, in the mini auction of the 2026 season, he had kept his base price at Rs 1 crore, but no team showed interest in him. He remained unsold in the auction.

Despite being unsold, according to what rules was George Linde able to come to bat for Lucknow Super Giants? LSG’s star spin bowler Wanindu Hasaranga was ruled out of the IPL 2026 tournament due to a hamstring injury. In such a situation, Lucknow team management had declared George Linde of South Africa as his replacement.

Till now everything was fine, but George Linde was not a part of LSG’s playing eleven in the match against Gujarat Titans, then his sudden arrival to bat was surprising. This happened because Lucknow had made him an impact player and put him to bat. Lucknow had lost 6 wickets till the score of 118, in such a situation, to bring depth in the batting, LSG team took advantage of George Linde’s batting skills by making him an impact player and fielded him to bat.

George Linde has played for South Africa in all three formats, Test, T20 and ODI. In his T20 career of 250 matches, he has taken 218 wickets and also scored 2746 runs.

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