Rishabh Pant's Big Excuse Behind LSG's Poor Show In IPL 2025, Puts Blame On...

After Lucknow Super Giants' elimination from IPL 2025 playoffs race, Rishabh Pant said the team found it difficult to keep up with the other teams as the race to playoffs heated up.

Captain Rishabh Pant on Monday admitted it was difficult for his side to fill the void created by the absence of key bowlers as Lucknow Super Giants bowed out of the race to the Indian Premier League playoffs. LSG's six-wicket loss to Sunrisers Hyderabad here knocked them out of reckoning for a top-four finish, with the Pant-led side enduring a demanding campaign from their bowling squad, which was stretched thin.

"Definitely it could have been one of our best seasons but coming into the tournament we had a lot of gaps, injuries and as a team we decided to not talk about that, but it became difficult to fill those gaps for us,” Pant told the broadcaster after their loss to SRH.

LSG began the IPL with injuries to Mohsin Khan, Avesh Khan, Akash Deep and Mayank Yadav.

While they signed Shardul Thakur after the season began and the likes of Avesh and Akash returned, Mayank could only feature in a couple of games before being ruled out due to an injury again.

"The way we planned the auction, if we would have had the same bowling... but this is cricket, sometimes things go your way and sometimes they don't, we take pride in the way we played and take the positives from the season rather than the negative side."

"We have a strong batting lineup, have enough firepower, and that is the biggest positive for the season," said Pant, who himself endured a horror season as a batter.