Rishabh Pant (Image credit: BCCI/IPL) NEW DELHI: A price tag of Rs 27 crore, Lucknow Super Giants’ failure to enter the playoffs in IPL 2025 and poor form with the bat – Rishabh Pant will be hoping to bury all the ghosts of the 2025 season and start afresh when the 2026 edition begins. Lucknow Super Giants will begin their IPL 2026 campaign against Delhi Capitals on April 1 at the Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow.Will Pant be under any pressure?
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Shashi Tharoor & Samson’s Redemption Story: From Failure to Fame Former South Africa captain Faf du Plessis believes Lucknow Super Giants skipper Pant will be the player under the most pressure in the tournament.Pant became the most expensive player in the history of the tournament last year when LSG secured the wicketkeeper-batsman for Rs 27 crore.However, his performances with the bat failed to justify his price tag. Despite scoring a century, his overall campaign fell short as the ton came when LSG were already out of the play-off contention.Pant scored just 269 runs in the 13 matches he played last season at a poor average of 24.45.“For me, Rishabh Pant is probably the player in the IPL who is under the most pressure this season. Some guys thrive under the pressure of the price tag and some guys don’t. I think last season was really tough for him. The team was struggling and he was also struggling for runs the way he was batting,” Du Plessis told Jio Hotstar.
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“So all the pressure comes into the season, along with the expectation of what the team is going to do. How are they going to maximize their bowling with the batting team? Because the pressure is on your captain, your first job is to score runs.”“So if he’s scoring goals as a captain, it takes the pressure off in the first instance. But then there’s the second instance, which is the overall performance of the team. And last year against each other, both of those things had big red crosses,” he said.
