Harbhajan Singh has advised the Lucknow Super Giants to resolve Rishabh Pant’s concerns regarding the ongoing IPL 2025.
The narrative of the IPL 2025 mega-auction was dominated by Rishabh Pant. When the LSG team acquired Pant for ₹27.5 crores, LSG’s exorbitant spending turned heads. This made him the most expensive purchase in IPL history. LSG was one of the two new franchises added before the 2022 season, and they had done reasonably well in the first two years. With Gautam Gambhir as mentor, they made The Playoffs back to back in 2022 and 2023, finishing third in the points table. However, disaster struck in 2024 when LSG found themselves marooned on seventh. With Pant’s addition, the franchise hoped to steer LSG in a new direction.
That is what it thought. With two losses in three games, Lucknow; however, are already in the spotlight, and it is barely raining. The brunt of the storm is borne mostly by Pant. The captain of LSG’s 2025 IPL campaign did not seem to have a good time either. His performance in Delhi Capitals, Sunrisers Hyderabad, and Punjab Kings was 0, 15, and 2 respectively. It looks like he will already have to put out more fires than he expected too. How else does one explain the unnerving phone call captain had with owner Sanjiv Goenka over the loss against excess the eight-wicket too.
In another eye-opening suggestion, Singh has added that LSG need to sort out the issue of Rishab Pant as soon as possible. It is troubling that even Pant’s T20 numbers elsewhere aren’t too comforting with Harbhajan, ‘They need to look after the pant shocks. Wasn’t able to do much,’ he seemed to insinuate that I need my support staff to rotate around me, it’s a tough gig,’’ on the YouTube channel.
Harbhajan says LSG had little opportunity to defend 171.
Harbhajan feels that LSG lost all hope at the moment they lost the plot… and rightly so. Apart from Nicholas Pooran’s 44 and Ayush Badoni’s 41, LSG batters could not show any valor. Arshdeep Singh decimated them with a three-wicket haul, which saw LSG finishing their innings at 171/7. This was a figure that PBKS managed to chase down without any difficulty. Half-centuries from Shreyas Iyer and Prabhsimran Singh along with an unbeaten 43 from Nehal Wadhera guided Punjab past the finish line and took the 2014 IPL runner up to 2 wins in a row.
“LSG got stuck. After losing the toss, they didn’t get enough runs on the board and really disappointed. Nicholas Pooran played amazing but he got high with deceiving Yuzvendra Chahal. So after Pooran got out, LSG were pretty much done. Ayush Badoni and Abdul SAmad provided some fireworks towards the end which got the target to something that was defendable, but nearly impossible to defend given how strong Punjab’s batting is.” Harbhajan added.
Finally, Harbhajan’s impression of the Punjabi team during the IPL seems to be more favorable. One of the only 3 teams out of the original 8 that have not won the IPL, Bhajji thinks that it could be a special year for them with Ricky Ponting.
“Punjab is starting to show signs of coming together as a team that fights together. This season may be the first time they go all the way. Ricky Ponting was the only one who could inspire these youngsters,” he explained. “Defeating Lucknow in Lucknow demonstrates superb cricket strategy.”
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