IPL 2025: Rishabh Pant's first statement after LSG eliminated from playoff race

Lucknow Super Giants are officially out of the IPL 2025 playoffs after losing to Sunrisers Hyderabad by six wickets at the Ekana Stadium on Monday night. It was a must-win game for LSG, but they couldn’t deliver, and now their hopes of making the top four are over.

Rishabh Pant on LSG’s exit from playoff race

After the match, LSG captain Rishabh Pant shared his thoughts on the season. He admitted that the team had high hopes but things didn’t go as planned. After LSG’s exit, only two teams are left in the IPL 2025 playoff race - Mumbai Indians and Delhi Capitals. LSG became the fifth team to get eliminated.

“Definitely it could have been one of our best seasons. But before the tournament started, we already had many gaps and injuries. As a team, we decided not to talk about it, but it was hard to cover those gaps. The way we planned our auction, if we had the same bowling attack, things could have been different. But this is cricket — sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t,” Pant said.

Pant also said that the team will focus on the positives. However, Pant’s own form was one of the major concerns that had been haunting the side throughout the season. He scored just 128 runs from 12 matches despite being the most expensive player in IPL history.

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“We are proud of how we played. We have a strong batting line-up with a lot of firepower, and that’s a big positive. Even the bowlers tried hard, they bowled in the right areas many times, but they were patchy,” he added.

Abhishek Sharma steals the show

Sunrisers Hyderabad were already knocked out before this match, but they came out strong. Abhishek Sharma smashed 59 runs off just 20 balls and Heinrich Klaasen also contributed with a 47-run knock. This helped them chase down a big target of 206 runs with ease.

LSG got a good start thanks to fifties from Mitchell Marsh (65) and Aiden Markram (61). They posted 205/7 in their 20 overs. But Rishabh Pant failed again, scoring just 7 runs. Nicholas Pooran (45) tried to boost the score in the final overs, but LSG couldn’t keep momentum in the middle part of the innings.