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Rishabh Pant walked out to bat at No. 7 with two deliveries left in the innings and scored a duck.
Rishabh Pant’s poor form has continued throughout IPL 2025 (Picture credit: AP)
Lucknow Super Giants skipper Rishabh Pant was seen engaging in a heated chat with mentor Zaheer Khan during their match against his former team Delhi Capitals, even as Anil Kumble said that Pant was ‘wronged’ and should have been sent in his regular batting position rather than at No. 7 and face just two deliveries.
With Lucknow placed at 99/2 after Nicholas Pooran’s wicket in the 12th over, everyone expected Pant to walk in at No. 4, but instead it was Abdul Samad, a decision that raised quite a few eyebrows.
While one might think the decision was taken to keep the right-left combination intact, Lucknow replaced southpaw Pooran with the right-handed Samad.
“It’s alright if you wanted to bat more freely under less pressure by coming in late, but this was way too late. The kind of frustration Rishabh is showing is evident that he was wronged,” Kumble said while speaking on Star Sports.
“He (Pant) probably wanted to bat higher. Was it his decision? Or was it coach Justin Langer’s or maybe mentor Zaheer Khan’s? Whose decision was it? Because he looked very frustrated,” Kumble added.
A dejected Pant didn’t sound very convincing as he explained the rationale behind coming in to bat as low as number seven, promoting the likes of Samad in his franchise’s eight-wicket thrashing at the hands of the Delhi Capitals.
Batting first, Lucknow managed just 159/6 with Pant scoring a duck coming in at No.7 with just two deliveries remaining in the innings. The promotion of Samad backfired as he managed just two runs off eight deliveries.
“The idea was to like capitalise. We sent Samad to capitalise on a wicket like that. After that, (David) Miller came in and we just got stuck in the wicket. Eventually, these are the things we’ve got to figure out and try to find our best combination going forward,” Pant said while speaking at the post-match presentation.
The Lucknow skipper felt the toss played a big part in the team’s defeat to Delhi as the side batting second always got a better track to bat on compared to the one making first use of the wicket.
LSG play their next game against the Mumbai Indians on Sunday, April 27, at the latter’s home.
