Lucknow Super Giants skipper Rishabh Pant has been going through a torrid time in the Indian Premier League 2025. The southpaw is yet to make an impactful contribution with the bat for his side. Additionally, LSG did start the tournament well, but the performances started to take a downward spiral and his form has come under sharp focus. In 11 games thus far, Pant has scored 128 runs at an average of 12.80.
“We have to recognise that he’s still yet to totally understand the white-ball game – both formats, 50-over cricket as well as T20 cricket. A fabulous Test match batter, make no mistake about it, but here in this particular season, what I noticed is that he got out a number of times looking to play shots behind the wicket,” said former Indian cricketer Sanjay Bangar.
“If you do look to score down the ground a lot of times, then all those other areas open up. But if you’re only looking to score behind, then whatever is in front of you, you sort of are very much late and not in a great position to play.” Bangar said. “Now, you pull out the best innings of Rishabh – where has he looked to score the runs? Drives through covers, step down the track and try to hit the sightscreen or go over midwicket, square. But here he was trying to play those reverse sweeps or shots that are very fine. So as a batter, I think probably he just got caught in that confusion and forgot that his best game, or that he plays at his best, is when he’s looking to score down the ground,” he added.
Earlier former cricketer has said that one of the reasons behind his “very, very bad patch” could be down to Pant’s stubbornness. In 10 innings so far, Pant has made only 128 runs which includes one fifty and five single-digit scores. The costliest player in the at Rs 27 crore, this has been Pant’s poorest outing ever and Rayudu said time has come for the captain to change his approach.
