Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) skipper Rishabh Pant blamed his team’s unsettled bowling unit after they were knocked out of the IPL 2025 playoffs race on Monday (May 19).

LSG suffered a comprehensive six-wicket defeat against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) at Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow. It was their seventh loss in 12 outings this season and as a result, they failed to make it to the playoffs for the second successive edition.

Following the match, Pant weighed in on the unsettled bowling unit of his team and conceded they couldn’t fill the gaps owing to injuries. However, the wicketkeeper-batter praised the batting unit for their consistent performances throughout the season, calling it their biggest positive.

“Definitely it could have been one of our best seasons but coming into the tournament we had a lot of gaps, injuries and as a team we decided to not talk about that, but it became difficult to fill those gaps for us. The way we planned the auction, if we would have had the same bowling.. but this is cricket, sometimes things go your way and sometimes they don't, we take pride in the way we played and take the positives from the season than the negative side. We have a strong batting line up, have enough firepower and that is the biggest positive for the season, even for bowlers.. a lot of times they bowled in good areas but they were patchy,” said Pant in the post-match presentation.

Moreover, the southpaw recalled how they started off their campaign brilliantly but admitted that it became difficult for them to catch up with the well-settled sides in the second half of the season.

“We knew we were 10 runs short because the wicket was playing well, like I said before, we are playing well in patches and unable to close the momentum whenever it turned up on our side. The first half of the season we played really well but the second half it became tougher and tougher to catch up with the teams on the brighter side. The bowler Rathi has come up nicely for us, his first season, the way he bowled, he is one of the positives, but you need to keep improving yourself and get better and better as the seasons go,” he added.

LSG won five out of their first eight matches in the IPL 2025 season. The Rishabh Pant-led side was favorites for the playoffs but lost momentum in the second half, having now lost four matches on the bounce. They missed the core group of fast bowlers at the start of the season as Mohsin Khan had an ACL injury, while Mayank Yadav was recovering from a back injury.

Besides, Akash Deep was also dealing with a back injury in the beginning of the season and Avesh Khan had a knee injury. Hence, they struggled to field their best bowling unit and were forced to keep on tweaking their playing combination.

Amid all the injuries, leg-spinner Digvesh Rathi emerged as the stand-out performer for LSG, having claimed 14 wickets from 12 innings.