2 min learnUp to date: Mar 13, 2026 11:08 AM IST
Former South Africa skipper, Faf du Plessis, believes wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant will most likely be one of many gamers beneath essentially the most stress this season at IPL, which shall be his second yr captaining the Lucknow Tremendous Giants.
Talking on Star Sports activities, the previous Proteas captain identified the stress of hefty price ticket on a participant, “For me, he’s most likely the participant within the IPL who’s beneath essentially the most stress this season. We at all times discuss concerning the price-tag stress. Some guys flourish beneath that price-tag stress, and a few guys don’t. The final season for him was an actual powerful season. The workforce struggled and his runs additionally struggled, the best way that he batted.”
Pant had a largely forgettable IPL in 2025, which was his first with LSG and he was additionally the workforce’s captain. He had fetched a price ticket of Rs 27 crore, making him the most costly purchase within the historical past of the IPL public sale. LSG then did not make it to the playoffs and Pant scored simply 269 runs in 13 innings at a strike charge of 133.16. A whopping 118 of these runs got here in only one innings, with Pant ending the season off with a century. He then adopted it up with a stellar efficiency in India’s Take a look at sequence in England, earlier than being injured in direction of the tip of the tour.
Whereas he stays integral to the Take a look at workforce, Pant has seen his stature fall in white-ball worldwide cricket. It has resulted in him lacking out to the KL Rahul as wicketkeeper-batter within the ODI workforce and to the likes of Sanju Samson and Ishan Kishan within the T20I aspect. H0wever, there have been indicators of enchancment in latest home video games. In the course of the Vijay Hazare Trophy, Pant scored 70 off 79 balls in opposition to Gujarat, attempting to remain on the crease fairly than relying solely on his aggressive batting type.