Lucknow Super Giants captain Rishabh Pant has perhaps dropped a subtle hint on his future as the team’s leader after yet another miserable season. For the second consecutive time, LSG have failed to make it to the IPL playoffs after the southpaw has taken over the reins of the team. After being bought for a whopping Rs 27 crore, Pant has scored just 269 and 312 runs in 2025 and 2026 respectively, and has not only failed to fulfill the expectations as a batter, but also as a captain. Is
Is Rishabh Pant’s era as LSG captain done?
In an Instagram post following LSG’s final IPL 2026 game, Pant shared a post with an emotional caption, thanking the fans for their support while also noting that he had a lot of personal learnings in the season. What caught the eyes of the fans was one particular sentence, ‘grateful to have shared this journey with such incredible people.’ While this reads like a normal sentence that any player would pen after a season, it might be different in this case, especially after LSG director Tom Moody’s comments on the team needing a leadership change.
“A big thank you to the entire LSG family – the players, coaches, support staff, management and everyone who worked tirelessly behind the scenes every single day. A lot of hard work often goes unnoticed, and I am truly grateful to have shared this journey with such incredible people,” Pant wrote.
Speaking after LSG’s defeat to Punjab Kings, Moody stopped short of directly blaming Pant, but his comments gave enough hints to indicate that serious discussions are coming. LSG finished at the rock bottom of the IPL 2026 points table, having managed to win just 4 out of 14 games. In 2025, they finished 7th, winning 6 out of 14 games. Moody minced no words in indicating that there was indeed a problem with the leadership and that it would be reconsidered before the next season.
“From a captaincy point of view, he’s found it challenging, obviously, and the results reflect that, and you do have to wonder whether that pressure is reflected with his performance with the bat. Certainly, when it comes to the leadership of the franchise, it’s something that we’ll be taking some very serious consideration to regarding what it looks like in the future,” Moody said in the post-match press conference after the game against PBKS.
LSG replaced KL Rahul with Rishabh Pant as captain in 2025, after releasing the former. It was done in a bid to usher in a new era for the team. However, that hasn’t worked so far. While his numbers as a batter were poor this season, there are several other reasons as to why Pant’s captaincy came under fire. This includes the his own batting positions across games, the shuffling of Aiden Markram, the usage of his bowlers, among other reasons.
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