Dynamic keeper-batter Rishabh Pant will be entering a new phase of his Indian Premier League (IPL) career when he takes over as the captain of Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in IPL 2025. The flamboyant left-hander may be under pressure to perform for his new team due to the high price tag attached to him, but Pant, known for his aggressive batting style and resilience, is expected to live up to the billing.
Since making his IPL debut in 2016, Pant has represented only one team - Delhi Capitals (DC). He has scored 3,284 runs in 110 matches for them at an average of 35.31. He was named the team's captain in 2021 and led them to playoffs in the same season. He was let go by the franchise in 2024 ahead of the mega auction and became the league's most expensive player ever at Rs 27 crore.
This new era could help him revive his T20I career with India, having last played a T20I in July last year.
Pant offered glimpses of his big-hitting potential in the ICC Under-19 World Cup 2016 and the IPL editions in 2017 and 2018, but thereafter his performance in the shortest format has been quiet underwhelming, scoring at an average of 23 and striking well below 130 after 75 matches. Consequently, he was snubbed from the India T20 squad as Sanju Samson was preferred as the first-choice wicketkeeper-batter.
With many promising youngsters vying for the keeper-batter spot, Pant needs to perform strongly in the IPL to shake up the competition and re-establish himself in Team India's T20 set-up.
The first big decision Pant has to make as LSG captain is where to play himself. LSG have put together a top-heavy squad for the new season, featuring the likes of Aiden Markram, Mitchell Marsh, Nicholas Pooran, and David Miller. Adding Pant and Ayush Badoni to the list, LSG's top six looks extremely strong on paper. But the issue is that none of them is a specialist opener.
Among the six, Pooran (94 innings) and Marsh (85 innings) have had batted in the top three the most, with Markram (39 innings) and Pant (21) have opened the batting on most occasions, with others opening sporadically. Markram has opened only once in last four years while Pant has opened only five times in last six years, as per Wisden.
LSG might find themselves in a quandary while picking two openers and four middle-order batters from this high-profile contingent.
It would be tempting for LSG to rotate Pant, Pooran, Miller and Badoni for the spots between three and six, but the one-dimensionality of having three left-handers back-to-back will be a cause for concern.
Pooran has established himself as one of the most destructive middle-order batters in T20 cricket. No one has scored runs at a higher strike rate of 175.98 than him since IPL 2023, not even equally celebrated stars like Suryakumar Yadav and Heinrich Klaasen. On the other hand, Miller has cemented his position as a specialist finisher in franchise cricket, which takes these two out of the discussions on opening slots and places them at numbers four-five or five-six or four-six, with Badoni to break the right-hand pattern.
Among the other three - Pant, Markram and Marsh - the Indian has the best numbers as an opener in T20s. While Pant averages 32.2 and strikes at 162.2 as an opener, Markram averages 27.9 and strikes at 128.9, while Marsh averages 18.8 and strikes at 147.1.
While Pant has opened only on 21 occasions in his career, his average is almost the same (33) at number three and four and 31 at number five. Also, his strike rate as an opener is much higher than his numbers at three, four and five (149, 143 and 141 respectively).
Also, the last time India tried Pant as a T20I opener was in 2022 and the returns were mixed with scores of 26, 1, 27, 6, 11. But whenever he scored above 10 or even 20, his strike rate was above 170. His batting average as an opener for India is 14.20 and his strike rate is 136.50, way higher than his career strike rate of over 127.
After 2022, he did not open at any level of T20 cricket, but was used at number three in the T20 World Cup by the team management in order to add a left-handed batter at the top three. He could do the same for LSG. He performed his job well in T20 WC, scoring 171 runs in eight innings, striking at 127.61 on bower-friendly surfaces. Moreover, Pant's aggressive style of play could yield him more runs when fielding restrictions are in place. Marsh or Markram can be his opening partner.
Pant has admitted that the temptation to open is there, but there is no clarity on his role yet. "Obviously, there is a temptation to go that way (open the innings) but there is no 100 per cent clarity that should I open or stay in the middle order," Pant reportedly said after his appointment as LSG captain in January.
"Because when you have played in the middle order for so many years and have done well, God has been kind, so you get used to it. So I don't want to make rash decisions like 'let us do it because the external noise is suggesting this," he added.
"For me, this is my life, it is my career and this is something I live for and I don't want to change that overnight. I want to think over it a bit more, discuss it further with Zak bhai (Zaheer Khan, LSG mentor) and Justin (Langer, LSG head coach) about what we can do and eventually, we will back whatever decision we take," he added.
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