Rishabh Pant on Lucknow Super Giants bench© BCCI/Sportzpics
Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) captain Rishabh Pant has proved to be a Rs 27 crore flop in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 season. With just one half-century to his name, Pant hasn’t lived up to the ‘record’ price tag he was bought for. In the match against his former side Delhi Capitals, Pant came out to bat at the No. 7 spot, promoting the likes of Abdul Samad, Ayush Badoni, and David Miller over him. As LSG went on to lose the contest, former Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and India batter Ambati Rayudu asked to quit giving excuses and become responsible for his and his team’s performances.
Pant has so far scored 106 runs at an average of 13.25 and a strike rate of 96.36. Against Delhi, he came out to bat in the final over and incurred a 2-ball duck. Though there remain different theories behind his No. 7 stunt, Rayudu feels Pant needs to be the main decision-maker in the team.
“Pant really needs to take control of the decisions that are being made at LSG. He needs to come up the order. He cannot give any more excuses. He is the captain and it is a captain’s sport. We all acknowledge that. Going forward, LSG need to make a few changes: maybe get Mayank Yadav in. Also, Pant has to bat slightly higher. You are visibly quite tensed about the whole situation,” Rayudu said in a chat on Star Sports.
Pant also had an animated chat with the team’s mentor Zaheer Khan on the bench, both before he was coming out to bat and after he got dismissed. Rayudu feels such visuals are not good for the team. If there’s disagreement between two members of a team, it needs to be settled behind closed doors.
“I feel Pant really needs to take the onus on himself. He really needs to make the decisions on his own. Sometimes these visuals are not really good if you are a good team. Because you want everything to be closed doors. You want everything to be said indoors. And also you don’t want any dirty laundry to be washed outside,” he added.
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