Former South Africa skipper, Faf du Plessis, believes wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant will probably be one of the players under the most pressure this season at IPL, which will be his second year captaining the Lucknow Super Giants.
Speaking on Star Sports, the former Proteas captain pointed out the pressure of hefty price tag on a player, “For me, he is probably the player in the IPL who’s under the most pressure this season. We always talk about the price-tag pressure. Some guys flourish under that price-tag pressure, and some guys don’t. The last season for him was a real tough season. The team struggled and his runs also struggled, the way that he batted.”
Pant had a largely forgettable IPL in 2025, which was his first with LSG and he was also the team’s captain. He had fetched a price tag of Rs 27 crore, making him the most expensive buy in the history of the IPL auction. LSG then failed to make it to the playoffs and Pant scored just 269 runs in 13 innings at a strike rate of 133.16. A whopping 118 of those runs came in just one innings, with Pant finishing the season off with a century. He then followed it up with a stellar performance in India’s Test series in England, before being injured towards the end of the tour.
While he remains integral to the Test team, Pant has seen his stature fall in white-ball international cricket. It has resulted in him missing out to the KL Rahul as wicketkeeper-batter in the ODI team and to the likes of Sanju Samson and Ishan Kishan in the T20I side. H0wever, there have been signs of improvement in recent domestic games. During the Vijay Hazare Trophy, Pant scored 70 off 79 balls against Gujarat, trying to stay at the crease rather than relying solely on his aggressive batting style.
