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‘Rishabh Pant seemed extremely disturbed, not the captain you’d want…’: Aakash Chopra on LSG skipper’s IPL 2025 season

IPL 2025: Lucknow Super Giants captain Rishabh Pant's strike rate is the slowest of all the batters who have crossed 100 runs this season thus far.

Rishabh Pant's lacklustre season has seen him aggregate only 128 runs with a solitary fifty. (BCCI)

Nothing has quite clicked for Rishabh Pant in his maiden IPL season with the Lucknow Super Giants. With the weight of a record Rs 27 crore signing hanging over his head, Pant has struggled to juggle captaincy and his own performances with the bat in the IPL 2025 season.

Pant’s lacklustre season has seen him aggregate only 128 runs with a solitary fifty. The southpaw’s strike rate stands at a staggering low at 99.22 in 10 innings. Pant’s scoring rate is the slowest of all the batters who have crossed 100 runs thus far. With wavering results, Pant has not been the best of leaders on the field either, according to former India opener Aakash Chopra who has criticised the LSG skipper’s animated gestures.

With LSG remaining in Playoffs contention with three games to go, Chopra reminded that Pant will undoubtedly be under scrutiny for remainder of the league-stage, starting with Monday’s home fixture against the Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Ekana Cricket Stadium.

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“My focus will once again be on Rishabh Pant. He is a good player, there is no doubt about that, but the truth is that he hasn’t done well this year. It’s also true that he was extremely animated as a captain in the last match before the IPL suspension,” Chopra said on his YouTube channel.

Highlighting Pant’s antics on the field during a 37-run defeat against Punjab Kings in Dharamsala before a one-week postponement of the league earlier this month, Chopra added: “It seemed like he was extremely disturbed and frustrated. That’s not the captain you want, one who looks frustrated on the ground. You and I will never get to know what’s going on behind the scenes. One shouldn’t come to know from the captain’s face that he is angry, but the anger was visible, which is not a great thing.”

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