Lucknow Super Giants’ Rs 27Cr captain Rishabh Pant buckles ‘under pressure’ on debut

Stupid, Stupid, Stupid: Sunil Gavaskar’s infamous rant on Rishabh Pant is viral again. There is a reason. It’s not the hotel booking ad. Instead, it’s how Pant conducted himself as the captain on Lucknow Super Giants debut. He scored a six-ball duck, failed to properly use Shardul Thakur who gave two wickets in his first over and then missed a match-winning stumping. The player who is known for his confidence to take the attack to any bowler on the planet buckled under pressure.

“We felt the pressure. It’s early in the tournament and we are settling in. Luck plays a big part, if it hadn’t hit his pad, it would have been a big chance for stumping in the last over,” Rishabh Pant said at the post-match.

Lucknow Super Giants had their underwhelming performances under pressure when KL Rahul was the captain. From 53/0, Lucknow failed to chase 136 runs in IPL 2023 with KL Rahul scoring 61-ball 68. They fell 7-run short. KL Rahul said he did not know what happened. That followed an infamous moment with the LSG owner caught in an animated chat with the captain on air.

To avoid a repeat of that, LSG let KL Rahul go and made Rishabh their No 1 target in the IPL Auction, breaking the bank with a record Rs 27-crore bid.

However, in Vishakhapatnam, on Monday, it is a repeat of that same brain-fade moment. Lucknow failed to win a match despite crushing them to 65/5 in 6.4 overs. All DC had was a little-known Indian domestic middle-order in young Vipraj Nigam and Ashutosh Sharma.

Nigam launched an early assault, scoring 15-ball 39. Then, Ashutosh took charge, hammering five fours and as many sixes to score an unbeaten 66 off 31 deliveries. However, as the two were going hammer and tongs with a 55-run stand off just 22 balls, Pant did not bring back Shardul Thakur, who blew away Jake Fraser-McGurk and Abhishek Porel in the first over.

Thakur bowled two overs in the powerplay bagging 2 wickets for 19 runs. Pant relied on the spinners and a little-known pacer Prince Yadav, who went for 47 runs in his four overs without getting a wicket. Delhi won it by 1 wicket with Ashutosh hitting the winning run.

“I think the runs were enough on the board. The batters batted really well. We may have lost the momentum in the middle but I think that was a pretty good score on this wicket. I think as the ball got older there was help for the bowlers but we could have done the basics more. We need to do the basics right more often,” Rishabh Pant said.

The missed stumping

While some argue about Pant’s white ball records, nobody denies his capabilities as the wicketkeeper. But as Pant urged his team to get the basics right, he got the basics wrong himself.

On the first ball of the 20th over, Mohit Sharma was on strike with Delhi 9 down. Mohit missed the line of Shabaz Ahmed’s delivery that deflected a little off his pad. However, Pant, who took an excellent catch in the first over behind the stumps, faltered under pressure.

He missed the stumping and instead appealed for an LBW. But the replay showed the ball was missing the stump. Mohit took a single in the next delivery only for Ashutosh to hit a six to win the game for DC.