3 Reasons Why LSG Will Struggle Under Rishabh Pant's Captaincy In IPL 2025

Aashay Chopade

Rishabh Pant will lead LSG in IPL 2025 (Source:@SumitG71/X.com)Rishabh Pant will lead LSG in IPL 2025 (Source:@SumitG71/X.com)

Lucknow Super Giants came into the IPL arena with high hopes in 2022 after forming a formidable arsenal in their first auction. They had KL Rahul as captain and the franchise made it to the playoffs in their first season. However, issues crept in after that and it all bursted out in the 2024 season with franchise not performing to the potential and as a result, LSG management decided to make a fresh start.

LSG have now appointed Rishabh Pant as their captain after buying him for a whopping amount of 27 Crore. They have also changed the arsenal and would be hoping that all these would bring change in their fortunes. However, not all changes end up taking the team in the positive direction and here are few reasons why LSG will struggle under Rishabh Pant's captaincy.

1. Tactical Errors As Captain In Past

Rishabh Pant captained Delhi Capitals in 2021, 2022 and 2024 seasons and they qualified for the playoffs only once. Overall, Pant has 24 wins as IPL captain in 43 matches and in the 2021 season, he had a settled side which made it to the final of 2020 season under Shreyas Iyer. They topped the group, but ended up losing both the playoffs game and some big tactical errors by their captain were quite evident throughout the season.

One of them was the one which cost them the Qualifier 1 of IPL 2021 where CSK needed 13 off the final over and Pant made an error by giving the ball to Tom Curran in place of Kagiso Rabada. The South African was bowling well in that season and though he had no wicket till then in that game, he was the obvious choice over Tom Curran given his world class skills. However, Pant went with Curran and Dhoni managed to take him apart.

Also, in many games, Pant did not complete full quota of his premier bowlers, and one classic case was Kuldeep Yadav not getting his four overs despite taking wickets in his first spell which helped the opposition get to a decent score. Also, once the mega auction came in 2022, Rishabh Pant's captaincy deficiencies were exposed even more as they never looked like making it to the playoffs in the new cycle.

2. Vulnerable Batting Under Slow And Low Conditions 

The Ekana Stadium in Lucknow is known for its slow and low nature and strokeplay is generally difficult at this ground. LSG have quality players in their arsenal, but many of them like Mitchell Marsh, Aiden Markram are not known to be great players of spin and could struggle in Lucknow.

Also, LSG's Indian contingent has lack of international quality in the batting department and Rishabh Pant too has not been able to score runs freely in T20s off late. In the last IPL season too, Pant failed to match the required rate on many occasions, and his strike-rate inflated only with couple of cameos on a flat deck in Delhi. Thus, LSG may struggle with the bat and the onus will be on few players like Nicholas Pooran, Badoni and Miller to deliver, otherwise things could fall apart.

3. Ego Issues Could Pose Threat To Team Stability

In the last season, LSG management and their owner Sanjiv Goenka grabbed limelight when the boss was seen in an animated chat with captain KL Rahul. The lecture came after LSG's humiliating loss and since then there were rumours of owner interfering more that what is expected in cricketing decisions.

Now, according to the reports, Rishabh Pant left DC because there were some differences between management and him regarding the make-up of supporting staff. It shows that Rishabh Pant is a strong individual who can walk away if things don't go his way, and if Goenka ends up going against Pant's decisions, things can get tricky and if can affect the team environment.