Rishabh Pant aimed to make the most of his solid start, which had eluded him in previous IPL 2025 matches, with an impressive 118 not out from 61 balls against Royal Challengers Bangalore. Despite posting a formidable 227 total, Lucknow Super Giants succumbed to defeat, with Pant attributing this to an inability to deliver “40 overs of good cricket.”
Reflecting on his innings, Pant shared, “Definitely, I was feeling well with each and every match. But sometimes, it just doesn’t come off. But today, I made sure that if I’m starting well, I should make a big one, like all the experienced players do; learning from the best always – whenever you get a start, try to make it [as] big as possible.”
Pant, who had an unremarkable season with a mere 151 runs in 12 innings before the match, explained his strategy to play straight, a tactic he hadn’t employed effectively till then. “I was trying to play the field, how they were going to bowl on this wicket, so definitely that [hitting straight] was something I kept in mind,” Pant elaborated. “Just playing through the line, just looking for the gaps, kept it very simple, and played every ball with the same intensity throughout the innings.”
LSG’s relatively green bowling side struggled, with Will O’Rourke and Shahbaz Ahmed conceding 113 runs in seven overs. Additionally, fielding lapses and a crucial no-ball from Digvesh Rathi, which gave Player-of-the-Match Jitesh Sharma a reprieve, compounded their woes, eroding LSG’s potential advantage.
“Eventually, you have to play 40 overs of good cricket, 20 overs will definitely not save you in a T20 game, and that’s been our story,” Pant acknowledged. The captain also highlighted their struggles with injuries throughout the season that significantly impacted their performance.
Despite finishing seventh with six victories from 14 matches, Pant did mention some bright spots in their bowling performances. “There have been some special bowling performances also,” he said. “Digvesh Rathi is one of them, Avesh [Khan] bowled some crucial overs. Akash Singh and Akash Deep also did. Like I said, we have been getting chances, but we wouldn’t be [weren’t] able to maintain it for a longer period of time and that is just costing us the match.”
This performance snapshot echoes the turbulent season for Lucknow Super Giants and underscores the necessity for consistency over the entirety of a match.
