 "Rishabh Pant opened alongside Mitchell Marsh during Lucknow Super Giants' season-opening game against Delhi Capitals in Lucknow on Wednesday. AP")
Lucknow Super Giants were off to a poor start in the 2026 Indian Premier League on Wednesday with a six-wicket loss against Delhi Capitals on home turf – their fifth on the trot against their neighbours. And at the heart of their defeat at Lucknow’s Ekana Cricket Stadium was their poor batting display.
It goes without saying that the Super Giants team management will be focusing on the batting department heading into their next outing – against Sunrisers Hyderabad in Hyderabad on Sunday. That, however, isn’t the only takeaway from Wednesday’s defeat.
Another poor start for Pant
Captain Rishabh Pant’s batting position has once again become a talking point at the start of an IPL season. And it has everything to do with his price tag as well as his performance with the bat last season.
Pant, after all, had smashed the all-time IPL record to become the most expensive player in the history of the world’s richest T20 league after being acquired by LSG for Rs 27 crore in the mega auction in November 2024. Such a hefty price does put the spotlight on a player in the IPL regardless of his stature in the sport.
The Indian keeper-batter’s performance, however, couldn’t have been in starker contrast to what was expected of him in the 18th IPL season. Not only did the Super Giants finish seventh on the table for the second season in a row, Pant had finished with just 269 runs in 13 outings across the season at an average and strike rate of 24.45 and 133.16 respectively. That’s including an unbeaten 118 off 61 balls against eventual champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru in LSG’s final game of the season.
The southpaw had batted at different positions in the middle order throughout the season, mostly at No 4, but somehow just couldn’t find consistency with the bat as the season went on. He had even opened alongside Aiden Markram midway through the season, but that was because of Mitchell Marsh’s unavailability due to personal reasons.
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View AllHis best performance, however, had come at the No 3 spot, albeit at the very end of the season when they already were out of the playoffs race.
Different batting position, same result
For Wednesday’s season opener against his former franchise , however, Pant decided to bring himself back at the top of the order, not as a temporary replacement but perhaps eyeing a more consistent run. South African T20I captain Markram, who had been in excellent form batting at this very position in the recent T20 World Cup, was pushed to No 3 as a result.
Pant’s IPL fortunes, however, barely improved, with the keeper-captain suffering a bizarre run-out and departing for just 7. The ball, after all, had brushed pacer Mukesh Kumar’s hand after a straight drive by Marsh before crashing into the stumps.
The run-out, however, doesn’t take away from the fact that Pant didn’t make much of an impact in his brief stay at the crease, collecting just one boundary in the nine deliveries that he had faced. LSG were 19/1 in three overs at the time of Pant’s dismissal. And the fact that they even got close to 50 at the end of the powerplay had more to do with Marsh and Markram’s acceleration after his dismissal than anything else.
And when asked if he would continue opening the innings for Lucknow going forward, Pant did not sound too confident, though he did insist that he would continue batting in the top order and wouldn’t drop to No 4 or lower.
“I think it’s a 50-50 call, but we’ll see. But you will definitely see me in the top order,” Pant said during the post-match presentation ceremony.
It’s one thing for a team to begin their season on a poor note. It’s another for the captain, a vital cog in the batting order, to be uncertain about his batting position, which doesn’t inspire a whole lot of confidence for a team that is desperate to improve its IPL fortunes.