Every time Lucknow Super Giants skipper Rishabh Pant dons his team’s jersey, there’s always chatter about his hefty price tag of Rs 27 crore for which he was bought in the last mega auction. The noise have started once again with Pant not in the best of forms this season, having scored just 189 runs at a strike rate of 126.84 with one half-century with LSG languishing at the bottom of the points table with 2 wins from 8 matches.
However, LSG bowling coach Bharat Arun said that the price tag had nothing to do with Pant’s form. “I don’t think the price tag has got to do anything with it. It’s just a question of, if you really look at his batting throughout and if you look at the second game that we played, he took us through the (finish) line. I wouldn’t be too concerned about his form. It’s just a question of (him being) one innings away from getting back his form,” Arun said one day ahead of LSG’s match vs MI.
LSG finished seventh in Pant’s first season at the helm with the left-hander making 269 runs in 14 matches at strike rate of 127.50 with one century and a fifty.
The former India bowling coach said every remaining game in the group stage of the IPL will be a knockout game for LSG.
“There is light at the end of the tunnel. For us, we have no other way to go. Every game is a knockout for us right from here,” Arun said.
“I don’t think reading too much into data would really help. It’s just that how we perform and how we focus on the things that we are confident about matters the most,” he added.
LSG’s next match will be against fellow laggards Mumbai Indians, who are themselves 9th in the table, at the Wankhede on Monday.
