Rishabh PantThe person who became the latest poster boy of the Indian Premier League (IPL), as the mega auction took place in November last year. However, fans of the richest league of cricket knew that spending a ‘record-breaking’ fee of Rs 27 crore would become one of the biggest reasons for the initial elimination from the Lucknow Super Giants’s T20 league. The pants shattered all the records as the franchise led by Sanjeev Goenka took away one eye to take advantage of the services of wicket-keeper batter. Coming to the 18th edition of the IPL, the management also decided to hand over the captaincy responsibilities to the pants.
No confidence, no clarity
LSG has the opportunity to bat in 12 matches played so far this season, Pants in 11. Except for the solitary half -century in the match against Chennai Super Kings, whoever came under the losing, the pants could not even cross the 25 -run mark in other 10 matches.
Pants took a lot of bizarre decisions for LSG this season during 11 outings, one of which saw him to bat in number 7. The result was a golden duck, after which there was a continuous flow of trolling on social media.
In the match against Sunrisers, Pants made a bold call of demoting Nicholas gornSurely the team’s most scary hitter, to play itself from one place to number 3. Even this stunt did not produce the results that skipper wanted, as they were rejected in a double -digit score.
Some dressing room scenes indicated a struggle between the team’s assistant staff and the captain on some region’s decisions. Confusion and lack of clarity on team matters can be clearly seen.
Rishabh Pant’s IPL 2025 data (after 12 matches):
- Play matches: 12
- Innings: 12
- Not out: 0
- Scored: 135
- The highest score: 63
- Batting average: 12.27 (as per image)
- Facing balls: 135 (according to image)
- Strike Rate: 100.00 (as per image)
- Centuries: 0
- Half -century: 1
- Square 12
- Six: 6
- Catch: 5
- Stumping: 1
Rishabh Pants in IPL 2025 (Match-Bai-Match):
- Vs Delhi Capital: 0 (6 balls)
- Vs Sunrisers Hyderabad: 15 (15 balls)
- Vs Punjab Kings: 2 (5 balls)
- Vs Punjab Kings: 2 (6 balls)
- Vs Kolkata Knight Riders (DNP)
- Vs Mumbai Indian: 21 (18 balls)
- Vs Chennai Super Kings: 63 (49 balls)
- Vs Rajasthan Royals: 3 (9 balls)
- Vs Delhi Capital: 0 (2 balls)
- Vs Mumbai Indian: 4 (2 balls)
- Vs Punjab Kings: 18 (17 balls)
- Vs Sunrisers Hyderabad (19 May): 7 (6 balls)
Team balance was ignored
Tom MoodyAn IPL-winner with Sunrisers Hyderabad realizes the fact that LSG spent a joint yoga of Rs 48 crore on Rishabh Pant’s pair and Nicholas Gorn played an important role in the team’s inability to build a strong bowling attack. The balance of the team, slanting in this process, was highly hit.
Moody said in a panel discussion on ESPNCRICINFO, “Rishabh Pant and Nicholas Gariban, spent on those two players, is very difficult to create a very strong bowling unit. Because you don’t have the money to compete in the auction table.”
“In an ideal world, this poor, (David) Miller, (Michel) is great for Marsh, Pants … … These are all impressive batsmen, but at the end of the day, you need to bowl. You are able to be an impressive bowling unit in the powerplay. Wickets, wickets, those really bowling to challenging overs when the opposition is going to hell and I think they do not think that the opposition is going to hell.”
The main responsibilities of a management are to build a balanced squad that is capable of performing not only personally, but as a unit. As the LSG management had put its head in the preparation for the auction, the balance was fundamentally ignored.
After spending Rs 21 crore for Gorn already, Lucknow should not have gone up to Rs 27 crore for pants. However, the owners lured to sign the most prestigious Indian player in the market.
27 crores below the drain?
Although the money spent does not change directly into the performance, a caliber player was expected to be much higher than that. The manner in which the 2025 season for LSG has expired, does not question franchise plans for the following year, especially by the fact that owners have pants in their plans.
