Pant bagged a two-ball duck after walking out to bat in the final over of LSG’s innings.
Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) suffered an eight-wicket defeat against Delhi Capitals (DC) in Match 40 of the IPL 2025 season at the Ekana Cricket Stadium on Tuesday (April 22).
Invited to bat first, LSG posted 159/6 on the board and DC chased down the target with 13 deliveries to spare.
During the first innings, LSG skipper Rishabh Pant faced backlash for batting as low as No. 7 when his team was under pressure. The wicketkeeper-batter tried to explain the decision in the post-match presentation, but ended up confusing the fans.
The likes of Abdul Samad and David Miller batted ahead of Pant, much to the shock of the fans and experts. In fact, Impact Sub Ayush Badoni also came out ahead of the southpaw and tried to rescue LSG after their mini-collapse between the 10th and 14th overs.
Rishabh Pant addressed the move, saying that the idea was for Samad to capitalize on the track, where the ball was slightly gripping. His remarks left everyone confused.
"The idea was to capitalise. We sent Samad to capitalise on a wicket like that. After that, Miller came in and we just got stuck on the wicket. Eventually, these are the things we’ve got to figure out and try to find our best combination going forward," Pant said after the match.
Pant bagged a two-ball duck after walking out to bat in the final over of LSG’s innings. It was his second failure against DC this season after having scored a six-ball duck against his former franchise in Vizag last month.
"We knew we were 20 runs short because, you know, in Lucknow, toss plays a big part. Whoever is bowling first, they get a lot of help from the wicket. We just had to stay back, stay in the match for a longer period of time, we couldn't get it away," Pant said.
"It always happens in Lucknow, the wicket gets better and better to bat on. That's how the game goes and you can't be complaining. Yes, toss is playing a huge part here, but we are not looking for excuses, just looking to learn from it," he added.
Furthermore, LSG's use of Badoni drew flak from the commentators. Pant explained that Badoni was being used as an Impact Sub to accommodate tearaway pacer Mayank Yadav in the line-up. However, that logic did not make much sense as LSG were batting first, and Mayank himself was named in the Impact Player list.
"We are impacting Ayush, to get Mayank some game time, just trying to find ways to get him early in the season because it's already halfway around. He came from NCA now, just trying to fit him in," Pant concluded.