On a day when he was removed as vice-captain of the Indian Test team and dropped from the ODI team, Rishabh Pant saw his IPL side, Lucknow Super Giants, suffer their ninth defeat of the season. Lucknow suffered a seven-wicket loss against Rajasthan Royals in their penultimate match of the season. With one match remaining in the season, Pant was asked how the team is looking ahead to the game. Despite seeing a string of frustrating defeats this season, Pant shared how his team was still a ‘f****ng good team’.
“See, like I said, you know, we are proud as a team regardless of how the situation is right now. You know the kind of team we have, you know we can win this , regardless of anything, we are confident enough as a team and, you know, as individual, it hasn’t gone our way and everyone knows that, but that doesn’t take away the fact that we are a f****ng good team,” Pant said after the match while talking with Ian Bishop on JioHotstar.
Batting first, Lucknow Super Giants posted a total of 220 for 5 in 20 overs. All-rounder Mitchell Marsh played a 57-ball knock of 96 runs to propel the side to the total. LSG were placed at 151 for 2 in 12.2 overs at one stage of the match, but reached only a total of 220 runs, with the last three overs seeing them score only 26 runs. The last over by Jofra Archer saw only five runs and the fall of three wickets. When asked about how he saw the score at the midway stage of the match, Pant shared how the team could not capitalise from the last over bowled by Archer and the team fell short by 5-10 runs. “I think it’s few ways to look at it. I think in the last over, the way Archer bowled, I think it was really good. We could have actually scored like, you know this kind of wicket you can actually score five or ten runs more when you get that kind of start and we could not capitalise on the last over,” said Pant.
With Mohammad Shami not playing in the match, the Lucknow team went with pacers Akash Singh, Mayank Yadav, Mohsin Khan and Prince Yadav for the match. Akash Singh and Mayank Yadav gave away 54 runs and 50 runs in their spells. When asked about how difficult it was for the Lucknow bowlers on such a pitch, Pant shared how it’s difficult with bowling plans against an opponent like Rajasthan Royals. “It’s definitely a difficult one for sure because you know, you want to back your bowlers. But sometimes it’s hard. Because on a wicket like this, there is less margin for the bowler. Just having too many suggestions does not work. Sometimes, you have to keep a simple plan and keep focussing on that one ball at a time and just try to execute the plan,”Pant said.
When asked whether his team missed the services of an experienced bowler like Shami, Pant replied in the affirmative and shared how experience is something which one always misses. “You know, experience is something you’re gonna always miss, regardless how it’s gonna go, good or bad. Because experience. Experience cannot be earned overnight. It takes years for people to gain that experience. And definitely in a pressure situation, that’s one thing which keeps you out for sure,” said Pant.
