Lucknow Super Giants’ season is effectively over. Thirteen matches have produced four wins, nine defeats and a guaranteed early flight home. They sit last on the table, the playoff cut-off now miles away. Still, captain Rishabh Pant bristled when asked whether Saturday’s dead-rubber against Punjab Kings mattered.
“We are a fking good team,” he replied, the frustration partly masked by defiance. “We are proud as a team regardless of how our situation is right now… It hasn’t gone our way and everyone knows that but that doesn’t take away the fact that we are a fking good team.”
The bluntness is admirable, though the scorebook disagrees. Pant himself has managed seven scores of 20 or fewer in 12 knocks. Nicholas Pooran has looked scratchy. Even Mitchell Marsh – brilliant lately with 100 and then 96 – began the campaign cold. Team director Tom Moody admitted the misfiring middle order has dragged them down.
Tuesday in Jaipur underlined how one leak creates another. Chasing 221, Rajasthan Royals were 75 without loss in 39 deliveries. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s 93 off 38 and Yashasvi Jaiswal’s 43 off 23 left Lucknow’s bowlers in tatters.
“Sometimes, you know, it is hard,” Pant said. “On a flat wicket like this, there is less margin for the bowlers… Sometimes you have to keep a simple plan, focus on one ball at a time and try to execute.”
That simplicity got complicated when Sooryavanshi batted deep. Pant held back left-arm spinner Shahbaz Ahmed, only tossing him the ball for the 20th over, by which point Rajasthan needed two runs. Asked if that was a tactical error, the captain stood firm.
“Definitely, the left-handers. They had been batting for a period of time. And exposing a left-arm spinner, I didn’t want that, because [Digvesh] Rathi was in the side. So why take chance on Shabby when Rathi is there, for sure.”
The reasoning is sound on paper: bowl the leg-spinner at a left-hander, save the orthodox left-arm option. Yet Lucknow’s season has been littered with plans that made sense until they met the middle of an opponent’s bat.
What next? One final outing, pride at stake and maybe a chance for fringe players. Marsh looks in form and the attack could do with a confidence-boosting night. Realistically, the deeper questions – recruitment balance, Pant’s workload, support for the overseas core – will wait for the off-season debrief.
For the moment, all that remains is Pant’s rallying cry echoing across a quiet dressing-room corridor: “We are a fking good team.” Titles, though, are awarded on points, not passion.
