Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) pacer Akash Deep has fully supported his skipper Rishabh Pant amidst his dismal returns with bat in hand in the ongoing 18th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL 2025) season. The southpaw has scored just 151 runs from 13 games, with only one fifty to his name. The wicketkeeper batter's lack of runs has resulted in LSG suffering their second consecutive IPL group-stage exit.
For the unversed, Pant is the most expensive player in the history of IPL after being bagged for INR 27 Crores by Sanjeev Goenka-franchise LSG. Naturally, the expectations were sky high from the southpaw to not only lead from with bat in hand, but also inspire by his leadership abilities. Alas, that was not to be, as Pant could not find any consistency throughout the IPL 2025 season.
“Look, I feel that in cricket, timing is also something very important,” Akash Deep said ahead of Lucknow’s final league fixture. “I don’t think it’s about pressure because Rishabh has played a lot of cricket, and at a very high level too, and he has performed as well. An athlete who has achieved so much in life knows how to handle pressure. So I don’t think pressure is the reason. It’s more about timing—sometimes you want to do something, but it just doesn’t happen. I feel that’s the phase Rishabh is going through right now.”
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LSG crashes out of IPL PLayoffs as Rishabh Pant endures his worst-ever IPL season
It is to be noted that the IPL 2025 season has been the worst with bat in hand for Rishabh Pant since making his debut in the T20 league in 2018. The LSG skipper batted at several positions from number one to six to find some form and timing. However, that was not to be as barring the solid trio of Aiden Markram, Mitchell Marsh and Nicholas Pooran, the rest of the middle and lower order batters struggled for runs.
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Aysuh Badoni showed glimpses of his potential in quite a few games, but David Miller's utter failure in finishing games in this IPL 2025 season resulted in LSG's ouster from the T20 league. LSG have one more league game left in the IPL 2025 season against RCB on Tuesday, May 27. Pant and the team would be hoping to end the tournament with a win.
